“Of course. But the portrait hasn’t been published because the police are compelled to hush up the affair.”
“Does your son know any further particulars, I wonder?”
“No more than what he’s told me. He says that quite a number of secret police agents have been over to Tivoli trying to establish the lady’s identity, and that they think they know who she was. He was here only yesterday and we were talking about it.”
“And who do they think she was?”
“Well, my son has, of course, a lot to do with the police, and a few days ago a friend of his of the squadra mobile told him that they had established the fact that the dead girl was English.”
“English! Do they know her name?”
“No, only they say that she was in Rome a great deal last winter, and was seen generally in the company of a tall, dark, English girl, her friend. Indeed, they say that both of them were seen in the Corso, accompanied by a middle-aged English gentleman, about a week before Nardini took to flight. They had apparently returned to Rome.”
“And they know none of their names?”
“They’ve found out that the English signore stayed at the Grand, they don’t know where the young ladies were living, probably at some small pension. They are now doing all they can to find out, but it is difficult, as most of the pensions are closed just now. They’ve, however, discovered the name of the dead girl’s friend—through some dressmaker, I think. It was Mille—Milla—or some name like that. The English names are always so puzzling.”
“Miller!” I gasped, staring at the old fellow, as all that Lucie had admitted to me regarding her visit to the villa at Tivoli flashed through my bewildered brain. “And she was the intimate friend of this unknown girl who has been found dead in the empty house and whose tragic end has been officially hushed up!”