"I am afraid so, signora. They will want to ask you a few questions. The body ought not to have been moved from the place where—"
"We could not leave him in the sea," she said, as she had said in the night.
"No, no. You will only just have to say—"
"I will tell them what I know. He went down to bathe."
"Yes. But the Pretore will want to know why he went to Salvatore's terreno."
"I suppose he bathed from there. He knew the people in the Casa delle Sirene, I believe."
She spoke indifferently. It seemed to her so utterly useless, this inquiry by strangers into the cause of her sorrow.
"I must just write something," she added.
She went up the steps into the sitting-room. Gaspare was there with three men—the Pretore, the Cancelliere and the Maresciallo. As she came in the strangers turned and saluted her with grave politeness, all looking earnestly at her with their dark eyes. But Gaspare did not look at her. He had the ugly expression on his face that Hermione had noticed the day before.
"Will you please allow me to write a line to a friend?" Hermione said. "Then I shall be ready to answer your questions."