The story was bald and brief. A scuffle, ending in a fatal wound from a dagger. The man who used the dagger had escaped. The weapon was in the possession of the police.
“Was every means taken to find the man who killed him?” Eve asked.
“Every means, although there was no extra pressure put upon us. Nobody came forward to identify the victim or to claim the body. He must have been a waif and stray; his name, Smith, is one of the commonest English names, I am told, and it may have been an assumed name in his case. He was a fine young fellow, but showed marks of having lived recklessly and drunk hard. The lines in his face were the lines that dissipated habits leave on young faces. It was a sad business. Has the Signora any personal interest in this unfortunate gentleman?”
“Yes, he was my relation. I have come to Venice on purpose to find his grave.”
“That will be difficult, I fear. He belonged to nobody. His bones will have been mingled with other bones in the public grave ere now.”
“Oh, that is hard,” said Eve, in a broken voice. “A pauper’s grave. He was a gentleman by birth and education. There were those in his own country who would have starved rather than let him lie in a nameless grave.”
The official shrugged his shoulders with the true philosophical shrug.
“Does the Signora really think that it matters whether we have as grand a tomb as Titian or lie nameless and forgotten in some quiet corner? For my part, the finest monument that was ever set up would not console me for a short life. When these bones of mine are only aches and pains, and can carry me about no longer, away with them to the crematorium. The Signora will pardon me for venturing to state my own views, and if she desires it I will try to discover the exact circumstances of the Englishman’s burial. It is possible that there may have been some one interested in his last resting-place, and the grave may have been bought. There was a young Venetian, the girl who caused the quarrel, who seems to have been attached to him. She may have done something. If the Signora will be good enough to wait till to-morrow I may be able to furnish her with better information.”
Eve thanked him for his polite interest, and promised to recompense him for any trouble he might take on her behalf.
She received a letter from him the next morning.