"ARNOLFO."
Norman, looking at the Palestinian profile before him, felt that the spring had left the year. The gay youth, with his wit and plots and disguises, would make anyone believe or even do anything. While this worthy? The transition from Greece eastwards was overpowering.
Yet one could see this swarthy, powerful person was to be trusted, more to be trusted than Arnolfo. Norman burst into a flood of practical questions.
"We shall just walk there," came the answer to Norman's first batch of inquiries. "I often go to the palace, as I live quite near, in the square: I have a dissecting room there: my wife objects to having corpses in the house."
"Dissecting? In Alsander?"
"Yes," replied the doctor, in hollow tones. "It was expensive getting corpses in pickle from Paris. So I advertised in the Centjaro, the little local paper you may have seen, the one that hints so broadly that the King of Alsander is already in the town incognito."
"But with success? Surely, in such a religious country...."
"There was money offered," continued Sforelli, dryly. "My door was besieged. I am not sure I was not responsible for murder, even for parricide. Some of those whose near relations were rejected went away in tears."
"Well, Doctor Sforelli, to the point. This mad central idea you are sure of—that no one has seen the King; but what about the guards?"
"The guards are with us."