“Ah! I know, Signor Olivieri,” she said; “you are a past-master in the art of disguise to come out here and live as a contadino.”
“For the purpose of obtaining information every ruse is admissable, signorina. This is not the first occasion in my career by many when I have posed as a peasant.”
“Curious that Signor Enrico is so friendly with Velia, is it not?” she asked.
“Exactly my thought,” replied Pietro Olivieri, the renowned private detective of Genoa, for such he was; “there is some devil’s work afoot, but whether it is in connection with the matter we are investigating I cannot yet convince myself. As a field-labourer in madame’s service I have been ever on the alert. Fortunately no one has yet suspected me—for this place is, as you well know, a veritable hot-bed of anarchy and crime; a nest which contains some of the worst and most desperate characters in the whole of Italy. Therefore if I betrayed myself, I fear I should not return to Rome alive.”
“But have you no fear?” she asked anxiously. “Not while I exercise ordinary caution. Here, I am Pietro Bondi, a simple, hard-working contadino. I take my wine like a man. I gossip to the women, and I interfere with nobody. At first when I came here my presence aroused suspicion, but that has, fortunately, now died down.”
“You will watch Enrico?”
“Certainly.”
“I wonder what his object is in returning here to Borghetto?”
“In order to meet Velia.”
“He could have met her more easily in Rome.”