I think that Pennington had forbidden his daughter to look at me, for never once during dinner the next evening, as far as I could detect, did she raise her eyes to mine. When not eating, she sat, a pretty figure in cream chiffon, with her elbows upon the table, her chin upon her clasped hands, talking to her father in that low, confidential tone. Were they talking secrets?
Just before they rose I heard him say in English—
“I’m going out for an hour—just for a stroll. I may be longer. If I’m not back all night, don’t be anxious. I may be detained.”
“Where are you going?” she asked quickly.
“That is my affair,” was his abrupt reply. Her face assumed a strange expression. Then she passed along the room, he following.
As soon as they had gone my mind was made up. I scented mystery. I ascended in the lift to my room, got my coat, and, going outside into the ill-lit road beyond the zone of the electric lights in front of the hotel, I waited.
The man was not long in coming. He wore a golf-cap and a thick overcoat, and carried a stout stick. On the steps of the hotel he paused, lit his cigar, and then set off to the left, down the principal street—the highroad which led to the clean little town of Salo and the southern end of the lake.
I lounged along after him at a respectable distance, all curiosity at the reason why, in that rural retreat, he intended to be absent all night.
He went along at a swinging pace, passing around the lake-front of the town which almost adjoins Gardone, and then began to ascend the steep hill beyond. Upon the still night air I could scent the aroma of his cigar. He was now on his way out into a wild and rather desolate country, high above the lake. But after walking about a mile he came to a point where the roads branched, one to Verona, the other to Brescia.