Pale, quiet, resolute, with her mind made up as to what she had to do, Eve Vansittart crossed the Piazzetta towards Florian’s Caffè, and slowly, very slowly, passed in front of the windows, looking at the loungers seated here and there at the marble tables, and wondering whether this was the scene of her brother’s fate. She had not been told the name of the caffè. She only knew that it was at Venice, in Carnival time, and at a crowded caffè that the fatal encounter had happened.
She passed Florian’s, and a door or two further on was assailed by a photographer, who wanted to sell her views of the city at five francs a dozen, and who would not believe that she could exist without them. She looked at him absently for a minute or two while he showed his views, expatiating upon their beauty and cheapness, and after that thoughtful pause went into his shop, seated herself, and turned over the leaves of an album of specimen photographs, choosing a dozen at random—“this—and this—and this”—without looking at them.
“Have you had this shop long?” she asked.
“Fifteen years.”
“Then you must remember something that happened in a caffè in the Piazza—Florian’s, most likely—seven years ago. It was on a Shrove Tuesday, late at night. A young man was killed, accidentally, in a scuffle. Do you remember?”
The photographer shrugged his shoulders.
“That is a thing that might happen any year at Carnival time,” he said lightly. “There is much excitement. Our people are good-natured, very good-natured, but they are hot-tempered, and a blow is quickly given, even a blow that may prove fatal. I cannot say that I remember any particular case.”
“The man who was killed was an Englishman, and the man who killed him was an Englishman.”
“Strange,” said the photographer. “The English are generally cool and collected—a serious nation. Had it been an American I should be less surprised. The Americans are more like us. There is more quicksilver in their blood.”
“Cannot you remember now? An Englishman, a gentleman, stabbed by an English gentleman,” urged Eve. “Surely such things do not happen every day?”