CHAPTER XI
THE GENTLEMAN FROM ROME
I knew that my love for Lola was increasing, yet I did not know whether my affection was really reciprocated.
We were close friends, but that was all. I was seated with her in the pretty morning-room one day about a fortnight after my return from Madrid, when the footman entered with a card.
“Mr. Rayne is not in, sir. Will you see the gentleman?”
“Cav. Enrico Graniani – Roma,” was the name upon the card.
“He’s a stranger, sir. I’ve never seen him before,” the servant added.
“I wonder who he is?” asked Lola, looking over my shoulder at the card. “Father doesn’t somehow like strangers, does he?”
“No,” I said. “But I’ll see him. Show him into the library.”
When a few moments later I entered the room I found a tall, elegant, well-dressed Italian who, addressing me in very fair English, said:
“I understand, signore, that Mr. Rayne is not in. I have come from Italy to see him, and I bring an introduction from a mutual friend. You are his secretary, I believe?”
I replied in the affirmative, and took the note which he handed me.
“I will give it to Mr. Rayne when he returns to-morrow,” I promised him. “Where shall he write to in order to make an appointment?”
“I am at the Majestic Hotel at Harrogate,” he answered. “I will await a letter – I thank you very much,” and he departed.
Next afternoon when I gave Rayne the letter of introduction he became at once eager and somewhat excited.
“Ring up the Majestic,” he said. “See if you can get hold of the Cavaliere, and tell him I will see him at any hour he likes to-morrow.”
I could see that after reading the letter brought by the Italian, he was most eager to learn something further.
After two attempts I succeeded in speaking with the Cavaliere Graniani, and fixed an appointment for him to call on the following morning at half-past eleven.
What actually occurred during the interview I do not know.
Across the table at luncheon, Rayne suddenly asked me:
“You know Italy well – don’t you, Hargreave?”
“I lived in the Val d’Arno for several years before the war,” I replied. “My people rented a villa there.”
Then, turning to Lola, he asked:
“Would you like to go for a trip to Italy with Madame and Hargreave?”
“Oh! It would be delightful, dad!” she cried. “Can we go? When?”
“Quite soon,” he replied. “I want Hargreave to go on a mission for me – and you can both go with him. It would be a change for you all.”
“Delightful!” exclaimed the well-preserved Madame Duperré. “Won’t it be fun, Lola?”
“Ripping!” agreed the girl, turning her sparkling eyes to mine, while I myself expressed the greatest satisfaction at returning to the country I had learned to love so well.
That afternoon, as I sat with Rayne in the smoking-room, he explained to me the reason he wished me to go to Italy – to make certain secret inquiries, it seemed. But the motive he did not reveal.
At his orders I took a piece of paper upon which I made certain notes of names and places, of suspicions and facts which he wished me to ascertain and prove – curious and apparently mysterious facts.
“Lola and Madame will go with you in order to allay any suspicions,” he added. “I place this matter entirely in your hands to act as you think fit.”
A week later, with Lola and Madame, I left Charing Cross and duly arrived in the old marble-built city of Pisa, with its Leaning Tower and its magnificent cathedral, and while my companions stayed at the Hôtel Victoria I went up the picturesque Valley of the Arno on the first stage of my quest.
At last, having climbed the steep hill among the olives and vines which leads from the station of Signa – that ancient little town of the long-ago Guelfs – I came to the old Convent of San Domenico, a row of big sun-blanched buildings with a church and crumbling tower set upon the conical hill which overlooked the red roofs of Florence deep below.
The ancient bell of the monastery clanged out the hour of evening prayer, as it had done for centuries, sounding loud and far through the dry, clear evening atmosphere.
Five minutes after ringing the clanging bell at the monastery door and being inspected by a brother through the small iron grill, I found myself with Fra Pacifico in his scrupulously clean narrow cell, with its truckle bed and its praying stool set before the crucifix, but on hearing hurried footsteps in the stone corridor outside I rose, and my strange friend exclaimed in Italian:
“No, Signor Hargreave! Remain seated. I am excused from attendance in the chapel. I had to meet you.”
The narrow little cubicle was bare and whitewashed. Fra Pacifico, of the Capuchin Order, with his shaven head, his brown habit tied around the waist with a hempen rope, and his well-worn sandals, had long been my friend. Of his past I could never ascertain anything. He had called humbly upon my father when we first went to live at old-world Signa, years before, and he had asked his charity for the poor down in the Val d’Arno.
“You will always have beggars around you, signore,” I remembered he said. “We up at the monastery keep open house for the needy – soup, bread, and other things – to all who come from eight to ten o’clock in the morning. If you grant us alms we will see that those who beg of you never go empty away. Send them to us.”
My father saw instantly an easy way out of the great beggar problem, hence he promised him a fixed subscription each month, which Fra Pacifico regularly collected.
So though I had returned to live in London and afterwards played my part in the war, we had still been friends.
On my arrival at Pisa I had made an appointment to see him, and as we now sat together in his narrow cell, I questioned him whether, by mere chance, he had ever heard of a certain lady named Yolanda Romanelli. It was quite a chance shot of mine, but I knew that he came from the same district as the lady.
He was evasive. He had heard of her, he admitted, but would go no further.
His attitude concerning the lady I had mentioned filled me with curiosity.
In his coarse brown habit and hood he had always been a mystery to me. He was about forty-five years of age. He knew English, and spoke it as well as he did French, for, though a monk, he was a classical scholar and a keen student of modern science.
“Now, Fra Pacifico,” I said, as I reseated myself. “I know you are cognizant of something concerning this lady, Yolanda Romanelli. What is it? Tell me.”
Thus pressed, he rather reluctantly told me a strange story.
“Well!” I exclaimed at last when he had finished. “It is all really incredible. Are you quite certain of it?”
“Signor Hargreave, what I have told you is what I really believe to be true. That woman is in a high position, I know. She married the Marchese, but I am convinced that she is an adventuress – and more. She is a wicked woman! God forgive me for telling you this.”
“But are you quite certain?” I repeated.
“Signore, I have told you what I know,” he answered gravely, tapping his great horn snuff-box and taking a pinch, tobacco being forbidden him by the rules of his Order. “I have told you what I know – and also what I suspect. You can make whatever use of the knowledge you like. Yolanda Romanelli is a handsome woman – as you will see for yourself if you meet her,” he added in a strange reflective voice.
“That means going down to Naples,” I remarked.
“Yes, go there. Be watchful, and you will discover something in progress which will interest you. But be careful. As an enemy she is dangerous.”
“But her husband, the Marquis? Does he know nothing?”
Fra Pacifico hitched up the rope around his waist and made an impetuous gesture.
“Poor fellow! He suspects nothing!”
“Well, Pacifico,” I said, “do be frank with me. How do you know all this?”
“No,” he replied. “There are certain things I cannot tell you – things which occurred in the past – before I took my vow and entered this place. I was once of your own world, Signor Hargreave. Now I am not. It is all of the past,” he added in a hard, determined voice.
“You have been in London. I feel sure of it, Pacifico,” I said, for by his conversation he had often betrayed knowledge of England, and more especially of London.
“Ah! I do not deny it,” laughed the broad-faced, easy-going man, now again seated in his rush-bottomed chair. “I know your hotels in London – the Savoy, the Carlton, the Ritz, and the Berkeley. I’ve lunched and dined and supped at them all. I’ve shopped in Bond Street, and I’ve lost money at Ascot. Oh, yes!” he laughed. “I know your wonderful London! And now I have nothing in the world – not a soldo of my own. I am simply a Brother – and I am content,” he said, with a strange look of peace and resignation.
We who live outside the high monastery walls can never understand the delightful, old-world peace that reigns within – that big family of whom the father is the fat Priore, always indulgent and kind to his grown-up children, yet so very severe upon any broken rule.
Fra Pacifico had that evening told me something which had placed me very much upon the alert. I had not been mistaken when I suspected that he might know something of the woman Yolanda Romanelli – the woman whom Rayne had sent me to inquire about – and I felt that I had done well to first inquire of my old friend. He had hinted certain things concerning the Marchesa, the gay leader of society in Rome, whose name was in the Tribuna almost daily, and whose husband possessed a fine old palazzo in the Corso, as well as an official residence in Naples, where, in addition to being one of the most popular men in Italy, he was Admiral of the Port.
“May I be forgiven for uttering those ill-words,” exclaimed the monk, as though speaking to himself. “We are taught to forgive our enemies. But I cannot forgive her!”
“Why?” I asked.
“She has desecrated the house of God,” he replied in a low tense voice.
Two hours later I was back with Lola and Madame Duperré at the Hôtel Victoria at Pisa.
Coming from the lips of any other than those of Fra Pacifico I should have suspected that the Marchesa Romanelli had once done him some evil turn. Yet when a man renounces the world and enters the cloisters, he puts aside all jealousies and thought of injury, and lives a life of devotion and of strictest piety. Fra Pacifico was a man I much admired, and whose word I accepted without query.
Next day Lola was inquisitive as to my visit to the monastery, but I was compelled to keep my own counsel, and that evening we all three took the night express to Rome, arriving at the Grand at nine o’clock after a dusty and sleepless journey, for the wagons-lit which run over the Maremma marshes roll and rock until sleep becomes quite impossible.
With the Eternal City Lola was delighted, though it was out of the season and the deserted streets were like furnaces. Still, I was able to drive her out to see some of the antiquities which I had myself visited half a dozen times before.
My notes included the name of a man named Enrico Prati, who lived humbly in the Via d’Aranico, and one evening, two days after our arrival, I called upon him. Lola had been anxious that I should stay for a small dance in the hotel, but I had been compelled to plead business, for, as a matter of fact, I had become filled with curiosity regarding the mission of inquiry upon which I had been sent.
Prati kept a wine-shop, an obscure place which did not inspire confidence. He was a beetle-browed fellow, short, with deep-set furtive eyes, and he struck me as being a thief – or perhaps a receiver of stolen property. The atmosphere of the place seemed mysterious and forbidding.
I told him that I had come from “The Golden Face.” At mention of the name he started and instantly became obsequious. By that I knew that he had some connection with the gang.
Then I demanded of him what he knew of the mysterious Marchesa Romanelli, adding that I had come from England to obtain the information which “The Golden Face” knew he could furnish.
I saw that I was dealing with a clever thief who carried on his criminal activities under the guise of a dealer of wines.
“Yes, signore,” he said. “I know the Marchesa. She is a leader of smart society, both here and in Naples. During the war she spent a large sum of money in establishing her fine hospital out at Porta Milvio. She was foremost in arranging charity concerts, bazaars, and other things in aid of those blinded at the war. Could such a wealthy patriotic woman, whose husband is one of Italy’s most famous admirals, possibly be anything other than honest and upright?”
His reply took me aback, until his sinister face broadened into a smile. Then I said:
“I admit that. But you know more than you have told me, Signor Prati,” and then added: “Because the woman has risen to such high favor and her actions have always shown her to be intensely charitable, there is no reason why she should not be wearing a mask – eh?”
He only laughed, and, shrugging his shoulders, replied:
“Go to Naples and seek for yourself. The suspicions of ‘The Golden Face’ are well-grounded, I assure you.”
So, unconvinced, I returned to the Grand Hotel full of wonder. I was not satisfied, so I determined to take Prati’s advice and see for myself what manner of woman was this Marchesa. Fortunately, although it was out of the season, she was in Naples. Having two old friends there I went south with my companions two days later, and we installed ourselves at the Palace Hotel with its wonderful views across the bay. I had little difficulty in obtaining an introduction to the woman whom I sought. It took place one evening at the house of one of my friends, who was now a Deputy.
When she heard my name, I noticed that she started slightly, but I bowed over her hand in pretense of ignorance.
She expressed gratification at meeting me, and soon we were chatting pleasantly. She was a handsome woman of about forty-five, dark-haired and beautifully gowned. With her was her daughter Flavia, a pretty, dark-eyed girl of twenty or so, bright, vivacious, and very chic. The latter spoke English excellently, and told me that she had been at school for years at Cheltenham.
CHAPTER XII
THE SILVER SPIDER
That night, after a chat with Lola, I sat in my room at the palace and could not help recollecting how strangely the Marchesa had started when my name had been uttered.
Did she know of my connection with “The Golden Face”? If she did, then she might naturally suspect me and hold me at arm’s length. Yet if she feared me, why should she have asked me, as well as Lola and Madame, to call at the Palazzo Romanelli?
I had thanked her, and accepted.
Therefore on Tuesday night, with Lola and Madame both smartly dressed, I went to the huge, old fifteenth-century palace, grim and prison-like because of its heavily barred windows of the days when every palazzo was a fortress, and within found it the acme of luxury and refinement, its great salons filled with priceless pictures and ancient statuary, and magnificent furniture of the Renaissance.
About thirty people were present, most of them the élite of Naples society, all the ladies being exquisitely dressed. My hostess expressed delight as I bowed and raised her hand to my lips, in Italian fashion, and then I introduced my two companions. A few moments after I found myself chatting with the pretty Flavia, who, to my annoyance, seemed to be very inquisitive concerning my movements.
As I stood gossiping with her, my eyes fell upon a little Florentine table of polished black marble inlaid with colored stones forming a basket of fruit, a marvel of Renaissance art, and upon it there stood a silver model of a gigantic tarantula, or spider, the body being about seven inches long by five broad, with eight long curved legs, most perfectly copied from nature.
Flavia noticed that I had seen it.
“That’s our Silver Spider!” she laughed. “It’s the ancient mascot of the Romanelli.”
I walked over and examined it, but without, of course, taking it in my hand. Then I remarked upon its beautiful workmanship, and we turned away.
It was a gay informal assembly. Among the men there were several naval and military attachés from the Embassies, as well as one or two Deputies with their wives. Once or twice I had brief chats with the Marchesa, who, of course, was the center of her guests. One man, tall, with deep-set eyes and a well-trimmed black beard, seemed to pay her particular attention, and on discreet inquiry as to who he was, I discovered him to be the well-known banker, Pietro Zuccari, who represented Orvieto in the Chamber.
Now the reason of our visit to the Marchesa’s was to see what manner of company she kept, but I detected nothing suspicious in any person in that chattering assembly. Yet I could not put away from myself what Fra Pacifico had told me in the silence of the cloisters of San Domenico.
Again I looked upon the handsome face of that gay society woman and wondered what secret could be hidden behind that happy, laughing countenance.
After leaving the Palazzo Romanelli that night I resolved to “fade out” and watch.
Now Admiral the Marquis Romanelli, who was in charge of the important port of Naples, had, during the late war, returned to his position as a high naval officer, and with all his patriotism as the head of a noble Roman house, had done his level best against the enemy until the proclamation of peace.
Wherever one went one heard loud praises of “Torquato,” as he was affectionately called by his Christian name by the populace.
After due consideration I decided that we should move from Naples to the pretty little town of Salerno at the other end of the blue bay, and there at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, facing the sapphire sea, I spent several delightful days with the girl I so passionately loved.
“I cannot see the reason for all this inquiry, Mr. Hargreave,” she said one evening, as we were walking by the moonlit sea after we had dined and Madame had retired. “Why should father wish you to watch the Marchesa so narrowly? How can she concern him? They are strangers.”
I was silent for a few seconds.
“Your father’s business is a confidential one, no doubt. He has his own views, and I am, after all, his secretary and servant.”
“I – I often wish you were not,” the girl blurted forth.
“Why?” I asked in surprise.
“Oh! I don’t really know. Sometimes I feel so horribly apprehensive. Madame is always so discreet and so mysterious. She will never tell me anything; and you – you, Mr. Hargreave, you are the same,” she declared petulantly.
“I cannot, I regret, disclose to you facts of which I am ignorant,” I protested. “I am just as much in the dark concerning the actual object of our mission here as you are.”
“Do you think Madame knows anything of your mission here?” asked the girl.
“I don’t expect so. Your father is a very close and secretive man concerning his own business.”
“Ah! a mysterious business!” she exclaimed in a strange meaning voice. “Sometimes, Mr. Hargreave – sometimes I feel that it is not altogether an honest business.”
“Many brilliant pieces of business savor of dishonesty,” I remarked. “The successful business man cannot always, in these days of double-dealing chicanery and cut prices, act squarely, otherwise he is quickly left behind by his more shrewd competitors.”
And then I thought it wise to turn the subject of our conversation.
Salerno is only thirty miles from Naples, therefore I often traveled to the latter place – indeed, almost daily.
In Italian they have an old saying, “A chi veglia tutto si rivela” (“To him who remains watchful everything becomes revealed”). That had long been my motto. With Lola and Madame Duperré I was in Italy in order to learn what I could concerning the woman whom Fra Pacifico had so bitterly denounced.
One warm afternoon when, without being seen, I was watching the Marchesa’s pretty daughter Flavia who had strolled into the town, I saw her meet, close to the Café Ferrari, that tall, black-bearded, middle-aged banker Pietro Zuccari, whom I had seen at their palazzo. They walked as far as the Piazza San Ferdinando and entered the Gambrinus, where they sat at a little table eating ices, while he talked to her very confidentially. As I idled outside in a shabby suit and battered straw hat which I had bought, I saw this great Italian banker gesticulating and whispering into her ear.
The girl’s attitude was that of a person absorbing all his arguments in order to repeat them, for she nodded slowly from time to time, though she uttered but few words; indeed, only now and then did she ask any question.
I could, of course, hear nothing. But what I was able to observe aroused my curiosity, for the meeting between the girl and the middle-aged banker was palpably a clandestine one.
On emerging, they parted, he walking in the direction of the railway station, while the girl strolled homeward. Was she carrying a message to her mother from the famous financier?
The excitement he had betrayed interested me. I noticed that he had once clenched his fist and brought it down heavily before her as they sat together.
For a whole month we remained at Salerno, and a delightful month it proved, for I had long chats and walks with Lola, and we became even greater and more intimate friends. Madame Duperré noticed it but said nothing.
I went each day to slouch and idle in Naples, to sit before cafés and eat my frugal meal at one or other of the osterie which abound in the city, or to take my apératif at the liquoristi, Canevera’s, Attila’s, or the others’.
I confess that I was mystified why I should have been sent to watch that woman.
So clever, so well-thought-out and so insidious were all Rayne’s methods to obtain information of the intentions and movements of certain people of wealth, that I knew from experience that there was some cleverly concealed scheme afoot which could only be carried out after certain accurate details had been obtained.
I was torn between two intentions, either to reappear suddenly as a passing traveler and call at the Palazzo Romanelli, or still to lie low.
Many times I discussed it with Lola and Madame.
“Zuccari is always with the Marchesa,” I said one morning as we sat together at déjeuner at Salerno. “I can’t quite make things out. I have been watching intently, yet I can discover nothing. He sent a message to her by Flavia the other day – an urgent and defiant message, I believe. I hear also that the Admiral goes to Rome to-night,” I added. “He has been suddenly called to the Ministry of Marine.”
“Then you will follow, of course? We will remain here to keep an eye upon the Marchesa,” said Madame.
“You do not suspect the Admiral?” I asked.
“Not at all,” she said. “It is the woman we have to watch.”
“And also the pretty daughter?” I suggested.
With that she agreed. We were, however, faced by a strangely complex problem. Here was a woman – one of the most popular in all Italy – denounced by the humble monk of San Domenico as a dangerous adventuress. And yet she was the strongest supporter of the popular Pietro Zuccari – the wealthy man by whose efforts the finances of Italy had been reëstablished after the war.
After a long conference it was arranged that Madame and Lola should go to Rome and there watch the Admiral’s movements, while I remained in Naples ever on the alert.
Sometimes I became obsessed by the feeling that I was off the track. Once or twice I had received “ferma in posta” – confidential letters from Rudolph Rayne and also from Duperré. To these I replied to an unsuspicious address – a library in Knightsbridge.
By reason, however, of keeping observation upon the Palazzo Romanelli I gained considerable knowledge concerning those who came and went. I knew, for instance, that the pretty Flavia was in the habit of meeting in strictest secrecy a good-looking young lieutenant of artillery named Rinaldo Ricci. Indeed, they met almost daily. It struck me as more than curious that on the day after the Admiral had left hurriedly for Rome Zuccari should arrive from Bari, and having taken a room at the Excelsior Hotel, dine at the palazzo.
My vigil that night was a long one. I managed to creep up through the grounds and peer through the wooden shutters into the fine, well-furnished salon of the palazzo. It was unoccupied, but upon a table on the opposite side of the room stood the Silver Spider, the strange but exquisite mascot of the Romanelli. No doubt some legend was attached to it, just as there are legends to many family heirlooms.
That night I made a further discovery, namely, that when Zuccari left he returned to his hotel, where Flavia’s secret lover had a long chat with him.
Next day a strange thing happened. While watching the Marchesa I saw her, about eleven o’clock in the morning, walking alone in the Corso Vittorio when she accidentally encountered the banker Zuccari. They passed each other as total strangers!
Why? There was some deep motive in that pretended ignorance of each other’s identity. Could it be because they feared they were being watched? And yet was not Zuccari a frequent visitor at the Palazzo Romanelli, for it was there I had first met him? In any case, it was curious that Zuccari and young Rinaldo Ricci should be friends apparently unknown to either the Marchesa or to Flavia.
In order to probe the mystery I decided that it would be necessary to learn more of Zuccari’s movements. Therefore, having watched him call at the Palazzo Romanelli, I waited for him to leave, and at ten o’clock that same night he suddenly departed from Naples for the north. I traveled by the same train. Arrived at Rome, the banker remained at the buffet about half an hour, when he joined the express train for Milan, and all through the day and the night I traveled, wondering what might be his destination.
On arrival at Milan, I kept observation upon him. From the chief telegraph office he dispatched a telegram and then drove to the Hôtel Cavour, where he engaged a room. At once I telegraphed to Madame to bring Lola and join me at the Hôtel de Milan. They arrived next day and I told them of my movements.
Three days later Zuccari left the Cavour and traveled to the frontier, little dreaming that he was being so closely followed. Madame and Lola went by the same train, but having discovered that he had bought a ticket for Zurich, I left by the train that followed.
On arrival at Zurich, I was not long in rejoining my companions, for we had a rendezvous at the Savoy, when I learnt that Zuccari was staying at the Dolder Hotel, up on the Zurichberg above the Lake.
“A man named Hauser is calling upon him this evening,” Madame told me. “We must watch.”
This we did. More respectably dressed than when in Naples, I was smoking my after-dinner cigar in the handsome hall of the Dolder Hotel when a tall, well-set-up man, whose fair hair and square jaw stamped him as German-Swiss, inquired of the hall porter for Signor Zuccari, and was at once shown up to the banker’s private sitting-room, where they remained together for nearly an hour.
As I sat waiting impatiently below, I wondered what was happening.
I had already reported our movements to Rayne, who had, in a telegram, expressed great surprise that the Deputy should have left Italy and gone to Zurich – of all places.
Zuccari, on descending the stairs with his friend Hauser, confronted me face to face, but it was apparent that he did not recognize me. Hence I took courage and, later on, engaging a room, moved to the same hotel. Next morning I saw the banker meet the man Hauser a second time, and together they took a long walk on the outskirts of the town above the Lake.
From the concierge I extracted certain valuable information in exchange for the hundred-franc note I slipped into his hands. It seemed that the banker Zuccari frequently visited that hotel, and on every occasion the man Hauser came to Zurich to see him.
“They are conducting some crooked business – that is my belief, m’sieur!” the uniformed man told me in confidence.
“Why do you suspect that?” I asked quickly.
“Well,” he said confidentially, “Isler, the commissary of police, who is now at Berne, once pointed him out to me and said he was a friend, and believed to be one of the accomplices, of Ferdinando Morosini, the notorious jewel-thief who was caught in Milan six months ago and sent to fifteen years’ at Gorgona.”
At the mention of jewel theft I at once pricked up my ears.
“Then Hauser may be a receiver of stolen jewels, eh?” I whispered.
“I would not like to say that, m’sieur, but depend upon it he is a person to be gravely suspected. What business he has with the banker I cannot imagine.”
I knew Morosini by repute. I had heard Rayne mention him, and no doubt he was a member of the gang who had blundered and fallen into the hands of the police. Was it in connection with this incident that I had been sent to Italy to make inquiries?
I told Madame when alone what I had discovered, whereat she smiled.
“I expect you have discovered the truth,” she said. “We must let Rudolph know at once.”
To telegraph was impossible, therefore I sat down and wrote a long letter, and then I waited inactive but anxious for a reply.
It came at last. He expressed himself fully satisfied, but urged me to continue my investigations regarding the handsome wife of the Marchese.
“Be careful how you act,” he added. “If they suspected you of prying something disagreeable might happen to you.”
I was not surprised at his warning, for I knew the character of some of the international crooks who were Rayne’s “friends.”
But surely the banker Zuccari could not be a crook? If he were, then he was a master-criminal like Rayne himself. If so, what was the motive of his close association with the Marchesa Romanelli? I had noticed when at the palazzo that he seemed infatuated with her, yet she no doubt little dreamed of his active association with such a person as Hauser.
It seemed quite plain that whatever the truth the Admiral had no suspicion of his wife.
Zuccari and Hauser still remained in Zurich, so, though I had arranged with Madame and Lola to return with them to Naples, I sent them back alone and remained to watch.