The whole affair was mysterious. Grim and forbidding by day, an old Italian palazzo at night never inspires the stranger with confidence. Its great chambers are full of ghosts of the past, and one's imagination quickly conjures up visions of those old burghers who were such good haters; of the gay young cavaliers who rode to a joust or a skirmish with equal nonchalance; and of those richly-clad dames who caused all the great tragedies that were enacted within these dark, prison-like walls.
Little time was, however, allowed me for reflection, for almost immediately the door opened, and there entered a dwarfed and ugly little old man, with a queer wizened face, deeply wrinkled, and a grey beard, bushy and untrimmed. His appearance was so comical that I could scarcely suppress a smile.
"Ah, signorina!" he cried, in a high-pitched, squeaky voice, "I am glad you have come. I feared that you might not get the letter, and the matter is highly important."
"You are the writer of the letter?" I suggested.
"Ah, no, signorina," the old fellow squeaked. "Unfortunately, I cannot write—I can only make a cross." He spoke Italian, with a strong southern accent, and struck me as being of the lower class. To me it was strange that the queer old fellow should inhabit part of a palace of that description. "I did not write the letter," he went on, "but I wished to speak with you upon an important matter."
"I am all attention," I responded. "Permit me to mention that I have a cab waiting outside, and my time is precious."
"You are anxious to return on board the yacht, eh?" he grunted, with a strange expression upon his puckered face.
"I must join my friends within an hour," I said.
"Your friends?" he echoed, with strange emphasis upon the final word. "You are best apart from such as they."
"Why?" I inquired, surprised at the old fellow's sudden declaration. He was evidently aware of some fact which it was desirable that I should know.