Читать книгу The Mussolini Murder Plot - Bernard Newman - Страница 4

Table of Contents

My shock was more than the natural horror of seeing a man meet a sticky death. I was thinking furiously, agitated at a suspicion which had so suddenly become a reality. This was no fool students’ organization; the conception of the thing was diabolically clever. It was easy to see how it had been done—those “workmen,” who had taken so long to arrange the purple draperies, had prised the mortar from the center of the balustrade. I guessed—rightly—that these “workmen” would never be traced. (The men who should have done the job, incidentally, were later discovered, drugged, in a tavern.)

The cleverness lay in the death chosen for Mussolini. The Italians are a superstitious race, and not all Fascist propaganda can overcome inherited traditions. Had Mussolini toppled to death at the moment of announcing the advance into Abyssinia, then credulous minds would have drawn the obvious moral—a sign from Heaven. It seemed that someone else had realized the danger of making a martyr of Mussolini, and had devised this method of countering it.

My thoughts would have wandered into realms of conjecture, but it was essential to be very practical. The square, as I have said, was deserted except for police. The body was immediately carted off, and the mess cleared up. Aderno and I were surrounded by police—it was as well that he was there to vouch for me. We gave lengthy statements, and they questioned us till satisfied that we knew nothing more.

“You will say nothing of this, of course,” said the chief of police.

He was insistent, and I promised—there was no reason why I should not. I was not surprised to find that the Fascist policy was to hush up this unpleasant matter; it was not even referred to in the morrow’s newspapers. It is very useful when you can so control a press.

I lunched with Aderno, who was pale and concerned. I wanted to get his ideas.

“It is strange,” I said. “Yesterday we were talking of threats, and now—”

“People who intend murder do not send warnings first,” he broke in. “This has nothing to do with anonymous letters. Yesterday, I confess, I found your curiosity a trifle irritating. But now—had you not gone to the balcony, then the Duce must have died. Now that this thing has happened, the affair is serious. You must be frank with me. After all, although our countries are estranged, it can only be temporary. And we ourselves are still friends.”

If ever I had remarked any trace of coolness in him it had passed; he was now my warm-hearted, if quick-tempered, friend, the man who had given me a glorious holiday in his native Sicily.

“You are a man who has been mixed up in many strange affairs,” he continued. “Yesterday I thought you had come to Rome out of sheer curiosity—to see how Rome took the war. But now—tell me frankly, why did you come to Rome just now?”

“It was largely curiosity,” I hedged. “But I do confess some interest in that ultimatum—you remember, that League?—because it was so widespread. Our own statesmen had it, too.”

“But this is absurd,” Aderno declared. “You, a man of strange experience, know something of the ways of assassins. Does it ring true? This fool business of high-faluting warnings—is it not a farce? That ultimatum screamed aloud of students’ follies.”

“Don’t overlook Princip at Sarajevo,” I said.

“Quite a different thing—a youth who considered himself a patriot striking down a tyrant. That is quite understandable. But not this sententious all-for-the-good-of-the-world business! Nobody ever committed murder for a hazy ideal. No, it is when you mention Sarajevo that you get nearer home. I remember my chief saying, years ago: ‘If death ever comes to the Duce, round up all the Yugoslavs in Italy’.”

“Rubbish!” I insisted. “Why on earth should the Yugoslavs be concerned in this? What have they to do with Abyssinia—most obviously this affair is connected with Abyssinia.”

“All the Abyssinians in Italy are already under guard,” he said grimly. “No, it is only from Yugoslavia that hatred comes to Italy. And this crime was dictated by hate. The Yugoslavs alone hate us, and acknowledge it.”

“Well, can you blame them?” I asked. “You haven’t been very generous to your Slovenes in Istria. And when your Duce proclaims the new Roman Empire, and waves a Dalmatian flag, you can’t expect the Yugoslavs to feel very easy. But to accuse them of this is madness. I was in Yugoslavia this summer. There is a wave of revulsion from ideas of assassination—remember the death of King Alexander and its effects.”

I argued with him, but without effect. He pooh-poohed the idea of an international peace organization, and returned continuously to Yugoslavia. But at least the air was clear between us—I was even able to pump him, cautiously but successfully. I was certainly able to persuade him as to my sincerity in wishing to avoid the sudden death of Mussolini—although he would scarcely have appreciated the motives which prompted me!

Mussolini made his promised speech to a wildly enthusiastic, sycophantic crowd. The Times of the following day made the casual comment: “Signor Mussolini again showed his grasp of the dramatic effect of surprise. The great crowd gazed with wild anticipation at the customary balcony, duly draped in purple for the coming of the Duce. He, however, suddenly appeared at a window to the right of the balcony. The drama was appreciably heightened by this astute piece of production, and ancient Rome can seldom have witnessed such scenes of enthusiastic welcome and adulation.”

I wonder what they told Mussolini, to make him change his plan? I don’t know, but I am reasonably certain that they didn’t tell him the truth!

I hesitated what to do. I was convinced that the League was responsible for the attempt on Mussolini’s life—Aderno’s Yugoslav suggestion was laughable. The Yugoslavs would never be so mad as to force a quarrel with Italy, even when Italy was about to be embroiled in Africa. Yugoslavia has a definite and reasonable apprehension of Italy, and is only too anxious for the goodwill of the rest of Europe.

I felt that I could assume, however, that the League had shot its bolt. I knew something of the type of organization I suspected: everything would be built up to a grand and dramatic climax; when that fizzled, the whole scheme would fizzle too. I had recently been in Sarajevo and continuously I made mental comparisons. There the murder of the Archduke had been almost an accident. Chabrinovitch had thrown his bomb, which had done no more than wound an aide-de-camp. The Archduke’s car had dashed on, and Princip, the driving force of the conspiracy, had abandoned hope of action and was in a welter of despair. The fates played a strange trick that day; had it not been for Potiorek’s mistake—if mistake it really were—there would have been no assassination. Potiorek had to change the Archduke’s return route; he told everyone concerned—except the driver of the car! The man followed his original instructions, and Potiorek halted him precisely in front of Princip, the one man in Sarajevo who had death in his heart.

Princip had given up hope, till evil fortune gave him a second chance. Otherwise his organization would inevitably have collapsed—already, at the mere thought of action, most of its members had disbanded themselves. There would be no second chance for these people—the Italian police would see to that! The Fascist police is as good as any in the world at this kind of thing.

Yes, the danger was over, I considered. For their purpose, the time factor predominated. Mussolini must be “executed” at the initial moment of the Abyssinian campaign; otherwise the moral effect would be completely lost. Had their original scheme succeeded, I had to admit to myself that it might have produced good, if the resultant confusion had been carefully handled. But if Mussolini were murdered when the Abyssinian campaign was well under way, then his death would be merely a political assassination, deplored as such by civilized peoples, and with all the consequent dangers of martyrdom which I had envisaged.

I had managed to extract one piece of information from Aderno. Mussolini had only one public engagement on the morrow—he was to drive to Naples to bid an official farewell to cargoes of troops sailing for East Africa. I restrained my impatience to get back to London, therefore. If nothing happened tomorrow, then definitely I could assume that the danger had passed. My self-imposed task would be accomplished—by a slice of sheer chance for which I could claim not the slightest credit.

To my surprise, the newspapers the following morning gave full details of Mussolini’s projected journey to Naples. I decided to go on ahead. Aderno had a speedy Fiat, and I borrowed it from him. The streets of Naples were already crowded, so I drove back beyond the outskirts of the town. There the throng was but casual, consisting of small groups of peasants from the scattered cottages round about. A policeman selected a good place to park the Fiat where it would form an admirable grandstand.

The country peasants seemed placid and unenthusiastic after the exuberant crowds of Rome. They had come out to see the Duce either from curiosity or because they had been told to come—and in Italy, if you value a quiet life, it pays to do as you are told. They walked aimlessly up and down the road, in little groups, seeking points of vantage; like sheep, they tended to herd together along a single stretch of road, squatting down to wait with fatalistic patience.

Then I saw a girl who obviously did not belong. Surely that coat and skirt had been cut in London? Her neat, trim figure contrasted vividly with the luxurious curves of the local women, and her complexion singled her out—only British, American, and Hungarian girls have complexions which are naturally bonny without being exuberant.

I heard her asking my policeman, in halting Italian, when the Duce would come. I wondered why she had to come to this out-of-the-way spot, preferring it to the greater excitement of the Naples demonstrations. But I had no hesitation in speaking to her—we British may be self-contained at home, but we are always ready to make a little bit of England abroad. The day was tiring and sultry, so I asked her to rest in the Fiat, and to share its viewpoint with me.

Naturally she agreed, obviously surprised to find me English.

“But there, where don’t you find an Englishman?” she remarked. “Probably that’s why we have done so well in history—because we’re always on the spot.”

“I’m afraid we’re scarcely on the spot today,” I said. “The real excitement is in Naples—here we shall only see the great man rush by.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t stand the crowd—it’s too hot.” She took her hat from her head, and turned her face to the timid breeze from the sea. My first impressions were of the pleasantest. Her face was intelligent rather than beautiful; it had nothing of the doll-like prettiness of the young Italian girls, or the Madonna flatness of the grown women; her hair was brown, dressed from a parting low on the side completely over the head in a waving swoop; it crowned a clean and honest face, with eyes which, serious now, could at will twinkle merrily.

Our conversation was casual enough, in true British fashion. She was making a short holiday tour of Italy, apparently, and was in Naples by chance. She hinted that she held decided views about Mussolini, but could not resist her curiosity to see him. I had my own field-glasses with me, and luckily found a pair of opera-glasses belonging to Aderno in the Fiat.

Suddenly there were signs of activity. Two policemen on motorcycles rattled down the road at a great pace; my own policeman and his colleagues made themselves busy, “controlling” the little groups of rustics who had gathered, with sheep-like docility, in a confused heap. Half a mile nearer Naples the road was almost deserted—I noticed through the glasses two isolated men of the laboring class squatting patiently on the grass verge.

Two noisy cars full of police dashed by—a car is not a car to a Latin people unless it makes plenty of noise. The peasants began to wake from their somnolent stupor. A third car was greeted with salutes and vivas, but it was a false alarm. Through the glasses I saw a fourth car following; it was moving so rapidly that vision was difficult, but I thought I glimpsed a black-tuniced figure with a round hat.

The Duce swooped by; the peasants cheered and saluted, then looked at each other—what to do next? Was this all? Yes, mothers explained to petulant children, the Duce had passed—he was in that last car.

I was following the car through the glasses. Suddenly I caught my breath sharply—and heard a loud gasp from the girl standing beside me. Almost opposite the two laborers the car suddenly swerved, there was a bang, as if of a bursting tire. I could sense rather than see the chauffeur wrestling to control the wobble of the car. Still at a high speed, lurching dangerously, the car skidded, mounted the verge of scrubby grass, and crashed into a telegraph post!

I dropped my glasses and began to run; I saw a black form, which had been flung out into the roadway. I saw two laborers standing by it, their hands raised in horrors. Then another car full of police dashed by, knocking down two of the excited peasants who had flowed into the road.

I was on the spot only a few moments after the police. My heart was beating furiously, impelled rather by emotion than the unusual exertion. The body of Mussolini lay helpless, face down to the ground; he was not dead, for his fingers dug feverishly into the gravel. One of the police raised his head, and I recoiled. He seemed to have slid a yard or more along the road, and his face was a bleeding pulp, almost unrecognizable as human features.

The police waved me away, and I turned to the car. The chauffeur crouched over his wheel, dead. I heard a police-officer calling out orders—the approaching crowd of peasants was held back; the two laborers had apparently disappeared from the scene.

I was thinking furiously. Yesterday it had been planned for Mussolini to die, and today he would die by accident. There is such a thing as coincidence, but this seemed rather too strong to believe. Yet had I not seen the accident happen?

I went to look at the tires. Yes, the near-side front tire had burst—no wonder the car swerved, at such a speed. Then a strange protrusion caught my eye, and I ran my hand over it. My fingers touched metal! A slight wriggle, and it was mine; flattened, but definitely a bullet. No one had seen me; no one thought of the chauffeur—all eyes were concentrated on the man who lay on the roadway, injured to the point of death. I slipped the bullet in my pocket.

A moment later the car burst into flames. There was a dash now to release the chauffeur, but he was inextricably entangled with the wreckage, and he was dead. The police rushed for the extinguisher of their own car, but evidently the gasoline tank of the wrecked car was broken, and in five minutes it was a smoking skeleton of metal.

There was nothing I could do, and the police on the spot made it very obvious that they would prefer the scene to themselves. Accordingly I hurried back to the Fiat. To my consternation, there was no sign of the girl who had shared its accommodation with me. I hurried as I approached. For the moment I was genuinely concerned, for strange things can happen in Fascist Italy. Reaching the Fiat, however, I found the girl lying in the bottom of the car in a dead faint.

I ought to have anticipated it; the sight had not been pretty, and she had been following it through the glasses. Yet such had been the intensity of my own emotion that I had never even thought of her as I had rushed towards the scene of the accident. She must have been lying in a faint for ten minutes or more. Soon, however, I was able to bring her round, bending her over double so that the blood rushed to her head, and then, completing the revival with the aid of a flask which I found in one of the compartments facing the front seat.

But although the girl came back to consciousness, she was overwhelmingly distressed. Her face had lost its bloom, and was a dull white. Her eyes were staring as if with overwhelming fright. I must admit to some surprise; I had pictured her a healthy, high-spirited girl, and, now I look back, was even surprised that she had not dashed to the scene of the accident with me to see if she could be of assistance. However, this was no time for vain reasoning. I sat her in the back of the car and, despite the sweltering heat of the morning, piled rugs around about her.

Very soon she was herself again, save for her complete pallor and her obvious horror.

“Oh, it was horrible,” she moaned. “Is he dead?”

“The chauffeur is dead,” I replied. “The other, the Duce, is badly hurt, but I don’t think he is dead.”

“No,” she whispered, “I watched through the glasses as you ran. I saw him writhing on the road. Oh, it was all too horrible!”

There was obviously only one thing to do. I must get her back to her hotel as quickly as possible. My friendly policeman was close at hand. It is commonly reported that tips and bribery have disappeared from the curriculum of the Italian police. Nevertheless, I made a note rustle as I pointed out to the policeman the piteous state of my companion. He grasped the situation and, poring over the map with me, pointed out a succession of by-roads by which I could gain Naples. It was obvious from the concourse of people down the road, and particularly because of the very large force of police, that the main road would be completely blocked for some time to come.

Then I drove the Fiat along country lanes which were intended for ox-drawn wagons rather than delicate mechanism. She responded gallantly to the unaccustomed task, however, and within half an hour we were in the center of Naples. It was quite impossible to drive to the front door of the hotel, because of the throng, and I parked the car at the back and half carried the girl through the servants’ entrance. The staff of the hotel—it was only a small one—seemed to have completely disappeared—doubtless swelling the crowd of people in the street below. With my arm firmly about her waist, the girl staggered towards her room. I shut the door and then, to deaden the raucous cries from the street, shut the window also. I led her to the bed, soaked a towel in cold water and pressed it to her forehead. Then I massaged her eyes again, for it was very obvious, without being told, that she had a splitting headache.

For ten to fifteen minutes she rested quietly, I sitting beside the bed. Then she whispered that she was feeling very much better, and sat upright on the bed. At that moment great cheers resounded from outside. Her curiosity and mine intrigued, we walked together towards the window. The street was a forest of raised hands, and powerful lungs thrashed the air with high-pitched clamoring. In the mass of the throng I could not perceive the object of the demonstration. My companion found it first. I felt a sudden grip at my arm, heard a little half-strangled cry, and there she was lying on the floor beside me, once again in a dead faint!

This was a situation to which I was scarcely accustomed. My life has been planned along somewhat sterner lines than the succouring of distressed ladies. However, it was obviously no time for finesse. I picked her up and carried her to the bed again. I stripped off her skirt and coat, for I had the impression that the proper thing to do in the case of a severe faint was to remove a lady’s corsets. However, apparently this girl wore none. Again I resorted to the time-honored method of bending her double, flooding the brain with blood. This was again successful. She screamed—a cry of fear.

“Did you see him?” she cried. “He is there, outside!”

“Who is there?” I asked.

“He is! Mussolini! He was killed on the road an hour ago. I saw him. But he is there!”

I left the bedside and strode to the window, staring hard towards the square which bordered the dock quarters.

“I am right?” she queried. “It is Mussolini? It is not a ghost?”

“No,” I answered, “it is no ghost; that is Mussolini, right enough.”

“Then the man we saw?” she cried. “The man we saw—he who was killed or hurt on the Naples Road?”

“Evidently a decoy,” I said.

“But I don’t understand,” she said wearily, drawing her hands across her brow. “I don’t understand this at all.”

“Don’t worry yourself with it now,” I soothed her.

“But I must know—I saw him writhing in the road.”

“It is all very simple really, I expect,” I said. “Mussolini has a good many enemies; many attempts have already been made to assassinate him—the latest only yesterday. His guards naturally take precautions. Sometimes, when Mussolini is advertised to make a journey, he does it by another route and a dummy—a live dummy I mean, of course—a man who resembles Mussolini sufficient to pass—makes a journey in his stead.”

“Oh!” She pondered for a moment; then she whispered fiercely: “Oh, the coward! Think of him allowing another man to go to his death in his place!”

“I’m afraid I don’t agree with you there,” I said. “I am no friend of Mussolini, far from it, but I would never call him a coward. You must remember that, whether you like it or not, he is the most important man in Italy. His life is vital to Italy, according to the present Italian outlook; therefore his life is too valuable to risk. The employment of a deputy is quite a common device in other countries than Italy—it is a device commonly employed, for that matter, in Hollywood, where some film-stars are nervous of the hazardous feats their producers want them to perform, and prefer that more expert acrobats or riders should play those scenes in their place.”

“But to send another man to his death—that could only be the act of a coward,” she insisted.

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t agree. There are lots of words I could think of that describe Mussolini—a coward is not one of them. If you were to doubt his courage you would be torn to pieces by any Italian mob.”

“Oh, but that’s all legend,” she suggested.

“Not entirely,” I said; “legend is invariably founded upon something or other. The foundation may be insecure, but it is there. For example, to hear the average Italian talk, you would think that Mussolini’s record during the war was the finest of any soldier fighting on either side, whereas it was a perfectly ordinary affair, comparable in courage with that of millions of others. Nevertheless, it was definitely a courageous career—that is the point. You will hear the Italians babble about Mussolini’s forty-seven wounds. You would gather—in fact, many of them so believe—that he was wounded on forty-seven occasions, which would certainly give him a world’s record. Actually he received forty-seven wounds from one shrapnel shell, all at the same time—and in the back. However, that is quite painful enough. So, you see, the legend has at least a foundation.”

“But that was during the war,” she said, “when courage was the fashion. But since then—oh, he has been a coward!”

“Again I can’t agree,” I argued. “There are, of course, degrees of courage and different kinds of courage. Some of them evoke the highest praise, since they are based on the finest human attributes; others are not nearly so admirable, but they are still courage. It requires a certain sort of courage to be a dictator at all; it requires a certain sort of courage to pretend that whatever you said prior to a certain date was wrong, whereas everything said since that date is apostolic; it requires a certain type of courage to squash all opposition; it certainly requires courage to send to exile, or even to death, men who merely happen to disagree with your opinions. That is a sort of immoral courage. It seems to me that Mussolini has it in large quantities, mixed with the normal physical courage. He himself probably doesn’t realize that there is a difference between the two things—he certainly doesn’t realize which one controls him at any given moment.”

“But how can people exist under such things?” she muttered.

“To you and I, accustomed to comparative freedom, this state of affairs in Italy appears utterly wrong and even disgusting. We are accustomed to a degree of cleanliness in politics. Sometimes, in fact, we are squeamish. We may know of a cabinet minister who is a wonderful success at his job, but if he should happen to get embroiled in a particularly nasty divorce case or should be pointed at as a sexual freak, then his career is ruined, and for good—no matter how brilliant at his job he may have been. He must not only be free from offence, but free from suspicion of offence. We like our politicians, too, to be consistent—and there is no more telling argument against a man who has changed his political faith than to fling against him what he said ten years ago. That, of course, is the difficulty of the would-be Mussolinis of England. Mosley is a very able man—because we dislike his policy and methods, we mustn’t deny him that. But, of course, he hasn’t the advantage that Mussolini has.

“In Italy, archives have deliberately been burned. It is a crime punishable by perpetual exile to republish some of Mussolini’s earlier writings and sayings. He began his career, as you know, as a Socialist of the most virulent type. During his Swiss exile he was arrested for violence and for forgery. He led strikes, he defended the assassination of kings. In 1912, when an attempt was made on the life of the King of Italy, he published an article which began: ‘Attempted assassinations are the accidents of kings; why weep for the king? Who is the king? A useless citizen.’ Now these are the ideas that he denounces most bitterly today; consequently it is a crime even to mention them in Italy, and I doubt if one-tenth of the population knows anything at all of Mussolini’s early career. As he has utter and complete control of the press and every other form of propaganda, Mussolini can make quite certain that people do not know and never will know.”

“But what about foreign news?” she asked. “Surely he must know what the rest of the world thinks of him?”

“Not even that,” I said, “the only items from foreign newspapers which he reads are press-cuttings, carefully selected by his secretarial staff, and pasted in the form of a short newspaper—and these cuttings, needless to say, are from the few newspapers of the world which occasionally have a word of approbation for him. The number, of course, varies from time to time. Sometimes, when he has the fit upon him that he would like to be a constructive European statesman, then the newspapers welcome him and give prominence to his sayings. At others, naturally, they treat him at his proper worth. But,” I broke in on my own argument, “this is heavy talk after a couple of faints and with a headache.”

“I have been glad of it,” she said; “it has kept me from thinking of anything else. Oh, this afternoon was horrible, horrible!”

She was lying on the bed, her face turned towards me. She had pulled the counterpane over her. I was glad to see the color returning to her face. Her hands had ceased their frightened trembling.

“I think I could leave you now,” I said. “I hope you will excuse my unceremonious method of reviving you. I had an idea that it was essential to loosen the strings of corsets, but fortunately I couldn’t find any.”

The color returned more vigorously to her cheeks as she smiled.

“I am tremendously grateful to you,” she said. “You know, don’t you?”

“We shall meet again, of course. This has been a strange introduction,” I laughed. “By the way, we have not been formally introduced. I don’t even know your name.”

“Stirling,” she said.

“Stirling,” I said. “That’s a fine name. And may I know your other name?” I asked.

“Margaret.”

“Ah! Margaret Stirling. I shall not forget that.”

“And yours?” she asked.

I told her.

For one moment her eyes flickered. I could almost see her brain working. Where had she heard that name before? Then she placed me.

“Oh! I remember, I read your book. No wonder you were not so concerned over this afternoon’s affair—it must have been child’s play after your own adventures. You will not think me too weak and foolish, I hope?”

“Of course not,” I reassured her. “But now I think you ought to try and get a little rest. I will leave you—I’ll go into the town and see what is happening. Are you sure you want to stay here, or could I give you a lift back to Rome?”

“Oh! I must get out of here at once. The place has unnerved me, somehow.”

“Then suppose we have an early dinner, and go to Rome in the cool of the evening,” I suggested.

She welcomed the idea enthusiastically, and it was agreed that I should call back for her at six o’clock.

But when I knocked at her door there was no reply. A hotel servant came running towards me with a letter.

“The English lady left rather hurriedly an hour ago,” she explained.

“Left?” I repeated. “But she was to come with me.”

“She left with two gentlemen,” she said, “and here is a letter for you.”

I ripped it open.

Dear Captain Newman [it read], I am awfully sorry, but I have just heard news which compels me to leave immediately.

I want to say again how really grateful I am for your kindness this afternoon, and to say that I hope we shall meet again in happier circumstances.

Margaret Stirling, the note was signed. And she had gone away hurriedly with two men! There was some lurking suspicion at the back of my mind, but nothing fitted in, because the idea was simply impossible. I stuck the letter in my pocket. As I did so, my finger touched something hard—the bullet I had pulled from that motor-car tire on the Naples Road.

I hurried back to Rome, and in the morning went round to see Count Aderno. The morning newspapers merely reported a motor-car accident on the Naples Road and gave the name of the Fascist officer who had been severely injured. There was naturally no mention of the fact that he was got up to resemble Mussolini.

“I am going to leave Italy while I’m safe,” I said to Count Aderno, grimly. “When I go to Mussolini’s balcony it falls through, and when I go to see him ride by the way there is an accident. Even you will begin to suspect that, if there is a plot, I’m in it!”

He smilingly reassured me.

“Well, mind and keep your Duce in cotton wool, or else install him in a tank, until the present excited feelings have cooled down!”

“Don’t you worry about him,” he said, “we’ll take care of him. And, of course, so far as you’re concerned, don’t talk nonsense. You saved the life of Mussolini and the honor of Italy by your curiosity about the balcony; and as to the accident yesterday—well, that, of course, was sheer coincidence.”

Accident! So the Italian police had discovered nothing more. I decided it was just as well. I wanted to know a little more about those two laborers before I handed over the bullet which reposed in my pocket.