“Then what do you propose doing? If you tell him he is in grave personal danger he will only laugh at you and take no heed of your warning. Englishmen never can understand our people.”
“True, but—but really,” she asked suddenly, “is there any great danger?”
“I tell you, signorina, that some conspiracy is afoot against your friend,” replied the detective who, before entering business on his own account, had been a well-known official at the Prefecture of Police in Genoa. His work lay in the north and he knew very little of Rome, and was therefore unknown. “You requested me to assist you in this curious inquiry, and I am doing so; yet the further I probe, the deeper and more complicated, I confess, becomes the problem.”
“But you do not despair?” she cried anxiously.
“No. I am hoping ere long to see a ray of light through this impenetrable veil of mystery,” he replied. “At present, however, all seems so utterly complicated. There is but one outstanding feature of the affair,” he added, “and that is the attempt which will assuredly be made upon the life of your friend.”
“But why? With what motive?”
“They hold him in fear.”
“For what reason?”
“Ah! that, signorina, I am as yet unable to say,” was his quick reply. “If I knew that then we might soon get upon a path which would undoubtedly lead us to the truth.”
“We must crush the conspiracy at all hazards, Signor Olivieri,” she said quickly. “Remember that Signor Waldron is my friend—my dear friend.”