‘I wish to speak to the signore alone, in private, on urgent business,’ the man reiterated, looking scowlingly from one face to the other. He did not understand the foreign language they spoke among themselves, and he felt that it gave them an advantage.
‘Don’t speak to him alone,’ Sybert warned. ‘He’s dangerous.’
‘Well, what do you want?’ Copley demanded peremptorily. ‘Say whatever you have to say here.’
The man glanced at Marcia and Sybert, and then, shrugging his shoulders in true Italian fashion, turned to Copley.
‘I wish the money of the poor,’ he said.
‘The money of the poor? I haven’t any money of the poor.’
‘Si, si, signore. The money you stole from the mouths of the poor—the wheat money.’
Marcia shuddered at the word ‘wheat.’ It seemed to her that it would follow her to her dying day.
‘Ah! So it’s the wheat money, is it? Well, my good man, that happens to be my money. I didn’t steal it from the mouths of the poor. I bought the wheat myself to give to the poor, and I sold it for half as much as I paid for it; and with the money I intend to buy more wheat. In the meantime, however, I shall keep it in my own hands.’
‘You don’t remember me, signore, but I remember you. We met in Naples.’