The Weapons of Mystery

by Joseph Hocking

I did not reply to Simon's philosophy, nor to his wonderful scriptural quotations. I was too anxious to get to this hotel, where I hoped Kaffar would be staying.

We came to the great square in which stood the palace of the king, but I paid no heed to the imposing building nor to the magnificently carved monuments that stood around in the square. I was too anxious to turn down the street in which my hopes lay.

I went slowly down, till I came to the bottom of it, where a narrow road branched off, leading to a kind of observatory; but I saw nothing of an hotel.

My heart became like lead.

Simon's sketch of the streets had not been a false one. If any of my readers have been to Turin, they will remember the long street leading from the station; they will also recognize the two squares which Simon indicated in his plan. True, he had sketched them out of proportion, while the street was far more straight than he had drawn it. Still, it bore a close resemblance to that particular part of the city.

But there was no hotel, nor sign of one in the street.

We walked up and down again and again, with no success. Could it be that I had come all these weary miles again only for a bitter and terrible disappointment? The thought almost drove me mad.

I would not give up, however! There might be no hotel, but it was possible Kaffar stayed in a lodging-house, or even in a private house. I would knock at every house in the street, and make inquiries, before I would give up.

The Italian language was not altogether strange to me. I could not by any means speak it fluently, but I knew it enough to enter into an ordinary conversation. So, seeing a soldier pass up the street, I saluted him and asked him whether he knew a lodging-house or private boarding establishment in the street?

No, the soldier said, he did not know any at all in that street, or, indeed, in that part of the town; but if I would go with him, he would direct me to a splendid place, marvellously convenient, marvellously clean, and marvellously cheap, and, best of all, kept by his mother's sister.