Two men, both of them Italian, stopped to salute me as I walked, and to wish me ben tornato. One was an advocate whose wife was accredited one of the prettiest women in that city where, strangely enough, the most striking type of beauty is fair-haired. The other was the Cavaliere Alinari, secretary to the British Consul-General, or the “Major,” as everybody speaks of him.
I had only arrived in Florence two hours before, and, after a wash at the Savoy, had gone forth with the object of cashing a cheque at French’s, prior to commencing my inquiries.
Meeting Alinari, however, caused me to halt for a moment, and after he had expressed pleasure at my return, I asked—
“Do you, by any chance, happen to know any one by the name of Melandrini—Paolo Melandrini? His address is given me as Via San Cristofano, number eight.”
He looked at me rather strangely with his sharp eyes, stroked his dark beard a moment, and replied in English, with a slight accent—
“The address does not sound very inviting, Mr Greenwood. I have not the pleasure of knowing the gentleman, but the Via San Cristofano is one of the poorest and worst streets in Florence, just behind Santa Croce from the Via Ghibellina. I should not advise you to enter that quarter at night. There are some very bad characters there.”
“Well,” I explained, “the fact is I have come down here expressly to ascertain some facts concerning this person.”
“Then don’t do it yourself,” was my friend’s strong advice. “Employ some one who is a Florentine. If it is a case of confidential inquiries, he will certainly be much more successful than you can ever be. The moment you set foot in that street it would be known in every tenement that an Inglese was asking questions. And,” he added with a meaning smile, “they resent questions being asked in the Via San Cristofano.”