He shook with laughter. “Warned him? Of course I warned him. Youth would never have seen that molehill and fairy ring and projecting root, but wisdom cometh with gray hairs, my son. D’ye not think I’ll have the King’s thanks?”
“Doubtless,” I answered. “An the price contents you, I do not know why I should quarrel with it.”
By this we were half-way down the street, and we now came upon the guest house. A window above us was unshuttered, and in the room within a light still burned. Suddenly it was extinguished. A man’s face looked down upon us for a moment, then drew back; a skeleton hand was put out softly and slowly, and the shutter drawn to. Hand and face belonged to the man I had sent tumbling among the graves the evening before.
“The Italian doctor,” said Master Pory.
There was something peculiar in his tone. I glanced at him, but his broad red face and twinkling eyes told me nothing.
“The Italian doctor,” he repeated. “If I had a friend in Captain Percy’s predicament, I should bid him beware of the Italian doctor.”
“Your friend would be obliged for the warning,” I replied.
We walked a little further.
“And I think,” he said, “that I should inform this purely hypothetical friend of mine that the Italian and his patron had their heads mighty close together last night.”
“Last night?”