“What villa do you mean?”
“The Onorovele Nardini’s. He’s absconded, as I daresay you’ve heard.”
“Ah?” I said, “I did read in the English journals something about it. And did he live up there?”
“Yes. At the big villa. You must have passed it. He used to live here a great deal, and every one believed him to be an honest man.”
“Wasn’t he?”
“Dio no! He got a million francs of the public money, and no one knows what has become of it.” Was either of these men the son of the old concierge in the Via del Tritone, I wondered? I longed to ask them, but dare not. They, of course, told me nothing regarding the mysterious discovery of a woman’s body in the ex-Minister’s study. Perhaps, indeed, they, like all others outside the confidential branch of the police service, were ignorant of it.
“And doesn’t any one know where he is?” I asked, as we strolled at length upon the dark platform of the railway station.
“Oh! He’s in estero somewhere. We shall never get him, you may be sure. When once a man like that gets over the frontier he’s gone for ever.”
What, I wondered, would these two men think when, on the morrow, the truth of what had occurred at the Villa Verde became revealed! The body of the detective would be found, and another mystery would succeed the one which was being so carefully suppressed.
Both men accepted cigarettes from my case as we idled up and down the platform awaiting the train for Rome. It was their duty to meet all the night trains and note all arrivals and departures, therefore we passed an idle half-hour gossiping pleasantly until the train drew up, and entering a first-class compartment I bade them farewell and breathed freely again as we moved off towards the “Eternal City.”