“Why that?” asked Lily. Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper. “Has anything happened to——” she nearly said “Mr. Vissering,” but stopped herself in time!
Her heart was beating, she felt filled with a kind of strange shrinking apprehension; why had Aunt Cosy and Uncle Angelo told her that lie—as to Mr. Vissering being a business friend of Beppo’s? She longed, and yet she feared, to hear what Beppo had still to say.
“Let me tell my story in order!” went on Beppo importantly. “About ten days ago or so the old Dutchman disappeared. He had gone out to dinner somewhere, and he told Mme. Sansot that he would be sure to be back early. But he never returned! Luckily for herself, the woman informed the police the next day. She was nervous, owing to her knowledge that the man had so much money on him—though she declares that she never told anybody of the fact. Well, Lily, to cut a long story short, this Dutchman’s body was found down there”—he pointed vaguely to a spot among the tree-tops just below where they were standing.
“His body was found?” repeated Lily mechanically.
“It is probable that he had had supper in one of the villas which are scattered about on the mountain side, but what happened there is still a complete mystery. Perhaps his murderers followed him from the villa where he had dined and brutally did him to death in a lonely spot, or, if your friend Popeau is right, he was murdered in the villa and his body conveyed to where it was found, after his death.”
“How—how terrible!” whispered Lily.
She felt as if everything was going round her, as if she was about to faint. Her hand clutched convulsively the iron railing in front of her.
“The body was found under a heap of hurdles,” went on Beppo, “and it was only owing to the fact that the peasant to whom these hurdles belonged had sold them to a neighbour that the corpse did not lie there undiscovered till next spring. Though the body was almost naked, the clothes were neatly arranged under it. They had been ripped open and all the money taken away!”
As Lily made no comment, he added:
“You can imagine the sensation the affair has made in the hotel! While I was there one talked of nothing else. I myself went along to see the Commissioner of Police, a very decent fellow named Bouton, and he told me that there are points about the story which may make it a cause célèbre.”