“Watching Signor Waldron,” she echoed in alarm. “Are you quite certain of that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Who are watching?”
“Beppo and ‘The Thrush.’”
“That is Beppo Fiola and Gino Merlo—eh?” she remarked. “I thought Gino had been arrested in Sarzana.”
“So he was,” replied the man, “but he escaped. He is wanted, but the present moment is not an exactly opportune one for his arrest, signorina.”
“And they mean evil?”
“Decidedly. The Signor Waldron should be warned.”
“How did you discover this, Pietro?” she asked, standing with him in the deep shadow of a disused granary.
“Signorina, a man of my profession has various channels of information,” was his polite but rather ambiguous reply, his voice entirely altered, for he now spoke in an educated manner. Hitherto he had spoken in the dialect peculiar to the valley of the Tiber, but his last sentence was that of an educated man.