“He give me the verra queer look. Mebbe he is the little scared. I speak to him verra quick—look me so mad.” Baretti straightened in his chair and gave an illustration of his idea of stern, offended dignity. “Then he say he don’t know what I mean. I tell him he will know soon, an’ he won’t like. Then he is more scare. He say he tell me somethin’ verra private. This is it. He don’t like take the dorm girls to the campus in the bus for he is mad because they ride too much in Mariani’s taxies. Mariani is the nemico to him. That mean hate verra hard. I laugh at him. I say him that is the mos’ bigges’ lie he tell yet.”
“What an excuse!” Robin turned disgustedly to Marjorie. “It’s so flimsy it hardly holds together in the telling. The dormitory girls hardly ever patronize the taxies on account of the expense, Signor Baretti,” she explained to their host. “Sabani appeared well pleased in the beginning to have those seventy-two fares twice a day, not to mention the extra campus traffic he received. I never trusted that man.” Robin shook a disapproving head.
“Naw.” Baretti forgot manners and indulged in his pet “Naw” by way of expressing his contempt. “Well, I say him, ‘Nev-ver-r you min’, Sabani, I know the way to do.’ I laugh and go way from him. I think of Floroni who drive one the busses. I know he don’t like Sabani. I go in the street watch for him. He is drive the bus to Breton Hill. I have to wait long time for him. I drive my car out on the pike, wait for him there. I say to him come to my restaurant tonight after he make last trip. That is ten of the clock. He say he will.”
“And did he keep his word?” Marjorie asked eagerly. Two pairs of bright eyes fixed themselves upon the Italian. Neither girl had missed the note of triumph which had sprung into his voice.
“Yes, oo-h, yes,” was the instant reply. “Floroni is my frien’. Now he is my driver for my truck. I give him this place. He tell me he don’ want work mor’ for Sabani, for he is no good. He say he can’t give up the place when he has the family to work for. Then I say him: ‘You don’t like Sabani. You say me: Why he treat the dorm girls so bad; don’t give them any service with the busses?’”
Baretti made an eloquent pause as his black eyes sent a triumphant gleam toward one then the other of his listeners. They watched him in expectation.
“Floroni say: ‘Yes, I tell you, Sabani don’t tell me nothin’. I see an’ hear myself. Sabani get plenta mona becaus’ he don’t run the busses to the campus.’”
“Plenty of money because he doesn’t run the busses?” cried Robin her eyes widening with surprise. “I can’t see how that——”
“Yes-s;” the little proprietor interposed, a trace of excitement ruffling his quick, stolid assent. “He get that mona becaus’ Miss Car-rins give to him. She go to his garage two days before Thanksgiving; talk to him there. It is in the morning verra early. Floroni and the other drivers take out the busses. Floroni happen walk by her. He hear her tell Sabani this: ‘What you care, an’ I make worth the time.’ He don’t know then what she mean. Day befor’ Thanksgiving Sabani say him, ‘I give you holiday tomorrow; mebbe more days. Two the busses need the repairs. I pay you jus’ same as when you drive but you stay in the garage. You wash the cars; do such things.’ And so it is. He don’t like, but he need the mona’.” The Italian spread his hands with a deprecating gesture. “He say, Miss Car-rins make all the trouble.”
Listening to Baretti’s information concerning the bus trouble it occurred to both Robin and Marjorie in the same instant that they might have expected to hear the name of Leslie Cairns as the real power of malice. Robin’s flash of surprise at Baretti’s first accusation against Sabani instantly died out. She knew that it was not the first time that Leslie Cairns had bribed her way to her objectives.