"Eighth and last fact. About that time a man called at the office of the Campo Santo to know where he was to find the grave of Leonora Leone, the woman who had drowned herself in the Tiber twenty-six years before. The pauper trench had been dug up over and over again in the interval, but the officials gave him their record of the place where she had once been buried. He had the spot measured off for him, and he went down on his knees before it. Hours passed, and he was still kneeling there. At length night fell, and the officers had to warn him away."
Roma's foot had ceased to beat on the floor, and she was rising in her chair.
"That man," said the Baron, "the only human being who ever thought it worth while to look up the grave of the poor suicide, Leonora Rossi, the mother of David Leone, was David Rossi! Who was David Leone?—David Rossi! Who was David Rossi?—David Leone! The circle had closed around him—the evidence was complete."
"Oh! oh! oh!"
Roma had leapt up and was moving about the room. Her lips were compressed with scorn, her eyes were flashing, and she burst into a torrent of words, which spluttered out of her quivering lips.
"Oh, to think of it! To think of it! You are right! The man who spends his life looking for crime must have the soul of a criminal! He has no conscience, no humanity, no mercy, no pity. And when he has tracked and dogged a man to his mother's grave—his mother's grave—he can dine, he can laugh, he can go to the theatre! Oh, I hate you! There, I've told you! Now, do with me as you please!"
The death-like rigidity in the Baron's face decomposed into an expression of intense pain, but he only passed his hand over his brow, and said, after a moment of silence:
"My child, you are not only offending me, you are offending the theory and principle of Justice. Justice has nothing to do with pity. In the vocabulary of Justice there is but one word—duty. Duty called upon me to fix this man's name upon him, that his obstructions, his slanders, and his evil influence might be at an end. And now Justice calls upon you to do the same."
The Baron leaned against the stove, and spoke in a calm voice, while Roma in her agitation continued to walk about the room.
"Being a Deputy, and Parliament being in session, David Rossi can only be arrested by the authorisation of the Chamber. In order to obtain that authorisation, it is necessary that the Attorney-General should draw up a statement of the case. The statement must be presented by the Attorney-General to the Government, by the Government to the President, by the President to a Committee, and by the Committee to Parliament. Towards this statement the police have already obtained important testimony, and a complete chain of circumstantial evidence has been prepared. But they lack one link of positive proof, and until that link is obtained the Attorney-General is unable to proceed. It is the keystone of the arch, the central fact, without which all other facts fall to pieces—the testimony of somebody who can swear, if need be, that she knew both David Leone and David Rossi, and can identify the one with the other."