"Why should a Bravo take the life of one like this?"
"By having the goodness to answer your own question, Signore, you will spare me some trouble. Why should he, sure enough? They say Jacopo is revengeful, and that shame and anger at his defeat in the late regatta, by one old as this, was the reason."
"Is he so jealous of his honor with the oar?"
"Diamine! I have seen the time when Jacopo would sooner die than lose a race; but that was before he carried a stiletto. Had he kept to his oar the thing might have happened, but once known for the hired blow, it seems unreasonable he should set his heart so strongly on the prizes of the canals."
"May not the man have fallen into the Lagunes by accident?"
"No doubt, Signore. This happens to some of us daily; but then we think it wiser to swim to the boat than to sink. Old Antonio had an arm in youth to carry him from the quay to the Lido."
"But he may have been struck in falling, and rendered unable to do himself this good office."
"There would be marks to show this, were it true, Signore!"
"Would not Jacopo have used the stiletto?"
"Perhaps not on one like Antonio. The gondola of the old man was found in the mouth of the Grand Canal, half a league from the body and against the wind! We note these things, Signore, for they are within our knowledge."