“The police, it seems, have no knowledge of any person missing,” he continued slowly and deliberately, when he had read through the report. “The name Vittorina is, of course, as common in Tuscany as Mary is in England. The photograph taken by your Department after death had been seen by the whole of the detectives in Livorno, but no one has identified it. If we had had the surname, we might possibly have traced her by means of the register, which is carefully kept in every Italian town; but as it is, the Questore expresses regret that he is unable to furnish us with more than one item of information.”
“What is that?” asked Elmes eagerly.
“It is stated that by the last train from Livorno, one night in August, two persons, a man and a woman, inquired for tickets for London. They were informed that tickets could only be issued as far as Milan or Modane. The man was English, and the woman Italian. The detective on duty at the station took careful observation of them, as persons who ask for through tickets for London are rare. The description of the woman tallies exactly with that of the unknown Vittorina, and that of the man with the fellow who so cleverly escaped through the Criterion bar.”
“We already knew that they came from Leghorn,” the Inspector observed disappointedly; but the Ambassador took no notice of his words. He was re-reading for the third time the secret instructions contained in the despatch from the Minister at Rome, and stroking his pointed greybeard, a habit when unusually puzzled.
“You, of course, still have the original of that curiously worded letter found in the dead girl’s dressing-bag, and signed ‘Egisto’?” Count Castellani exclaimed presently, without taking his keen eyes off the despatch before him.
“Yes, your Excellency,” Elmes answered. “I have it in my pocket.”
“I should like to see it, if you’ll allow me,” he said in a cold, dignified voice.
The detective took out a well-worn leather wallet containing many notes of cases on which he was or had been engaged, and handed to the Ambassador the strange note which had so puzzled the police and the readers of newspapers.
His Excellency carefully scrutinised the note.
“It is strangely worded—very strangely,” he said. “Have you formed any opinion regarding the mention of Bonciani’s Restaurant in Regent Street? What kind of place is it? I’ve never heard of it.”