In the morning, however, my friend of the café entered briskly with the doctor, who had conducted him to the scene of the tragedy on the previous day, and in a moment our recognition was mutual.
“Well,” he exclaimed, standing by me and regarding me with some surprise. “What has happened to you?”
“I’m under arrest,” was my reply. “Accused of murder.”
“So I hear,” he answered. “It seems that our meeting at Biffi’s was rather fortunate for you—eh?”
“Now you recognise me, I’ll tell you all that occurred,” I said quickly. And then I related to them both in detail all the startling incidents, just as I have already written them down.
“Then it was not the Englishwoman who was murdered?” he said. “You told me her name was Price—if I mistake not. After I left Biffi’s that night I somehow felt convinced that Ostini and Belotto were up to some mischief, and I afterwards regretted that I had not waited and watched them. They looked rather too prosperous to suit my fancy. You, of course, believed the dead woman to be your friend, the English lady?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And the Englishman—what of him?”
“I did not see him after he entered the house,” I answered.
Then, after I had furnished him with many other minute details of my startling adventure of that night in which I had so narrowly escaped death at the hands of the assassins, he held a brief consultation in private with his colleague, who was apparently his superior in rank.