“This is Signor Angelo Bizzaro, the warden.”
“Thank you. All the same, privacy is essential. We are not armed.”
“I’m told that you were.” Arnold turned and spoke to the warden, and after a little exchange Bizzaro got up and left the room. “Now what is it?” Arnold demanded. “Are you American citizens?”
“We are. The quickest way to dispose of this, Mr. Arnold, would be for you to telephone the embassy in Rome and ask for Mr. Richard Courtney.”
“Not until you tell me who you are and why you were out on the road at night, armed, with no papers.”
“You’ll have to know who we are, of course,” Wolfe agreed. “And so will the police, but I hope through you to arrange that our presence here will not be published. I thought a talk with Mr. Courtney would help, but it’s not essential. My name is Nero Wolfe. I am a licensed private detective with an office in New York. This is my assistant, Archie Goodwin.”
The consul was smiling. “I don’t believe it.”
“Then telephone Mr. Courtney. Or, perhaps better, do you know a man in Bari, a broker and agent, named Paolo Telesio?”
“Yes. I’ve met him.”
“If you’ll phone him and let me speak to him, he’ll bring our passports, properly stamped at Rome when we arrived there on Sunday, four days ago. Also he’ll identify us.”