She opened the kitchen door. Cristina’s little oil lamp was burning, and she felt a vague sensation of surprise that everything looked just as usual.
Taking up a candle and a box of matches she rushed back again through the yard and round to the terrace.
She found M. Popeau alone by the trolley. After Lily had lit the candle, “Yes, it is as I thought—they could not make him drunk, but they gave him some form of strong narcotic, probably in water. We will take him down to the taxi, and so back to the hotel. He will be all right by the morning.”
The man whom Lily had last seen struggling with the Countess Polda came forward. “I have got her tied up,” he said apologetically. “There was nothing else to do, Monsieur!”
“You had better take her into the house, and stay there with her till M. Bouton sends up instructions.”
“We fear Count Polda is dying——”
“And where is the old servant?” asked M. Popeau suddenly.
The man looked taken aback. “She can’t have gone far,” he exclaimed; “we’ll soon find her, Monsieur!”
Beppo Polda sat in his bachelor rooms in Rome finishing the frugal supper his excellent day-servant had left out for him. He had only arrived about an hour before, and he felt pleasantly tired after the long journey.