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He told the fly to wait in Castagneto, and crossed the piazza, hailed by children and dogs, who all knew him and sprang up suddenly from nowhere, and walking quickly up the zigzag path, for he was an active young man not much more than thirty, he pulled the ancient chain that range the bell, and waited decorously on the proper side of the open door to be allowed to come in.
She was the Contessa di Castagneto, she said, an Englishwoman by birth; but her husband had been an Italian, as the name implied, and they resided in Rome. He was dead she had been a widow for two or three years, and was on her way now to London. "That will do, madame, thank you," said the detective, politely, "for the present at least." "Why, are we likely to be detained? I trust not."
He was on intimate terms with La Castagneto at least, he frequently called upon her." "La Castagneto! Do you mean the Countess of that name, who was a passenger in the sleeper?" "Beyond doubt! it is she I mean." The officials looked at each other eagerly, and M. Beaumont le Hardi quickly turned over the sheets on which the Countess's evidence was recorded.
"They formed part of the trimming of a mantle worn by the Contessa di Castagneto." "Ah!" it was the same interjection uttered simultaneously by the three Frenchmen, but each had a very different note; in the Judge it was deep interest, in the detective triumph, in the Commissary indignation, as when he caught a criminal red-handed. "Did she wear it on the journey?" continued the Judge.
Domenico, foreseeing this, had sent his aunt's fly, driven by her son his cousin; and his aunt and her fly lived in Castagneto, the village crouching at the feet of San Salvatore, and therefore, however late the train was, the fly would not dare come home without containing that which it had been sent to fetch.
Did you ever come across a man there, Quadling, the banker?" "Of course I did. Constantly. He was a good deal about a rather free-living, self-indulgent sort of chap. And now you mention his name, I recollect they said he was much smitten by this particular lady, the Contessa di Castagneto." "And did she encourage him?" "Lord! how can I tell? Who shall say how a woman's fancy falls?
"Yes, she is an Englishwoman, but the widow of an Italian the Contessa di Castagneto." "Oh, but I know her!" said Papillon. "I remember her in Rome two or three years ago. A deuced pretty woman, very much admired, but she was in deep mourning then, and went out very little. I wished she had gone out more. There were lots of men ready to fall at her feet." "You were in Rome, then, some time back?
So M. Floçon, by fair process of reasoning, reached a point which incriminated one woman, the only woman possible, and that was the titled, high-bred lady who called herself the Contessa di Castagneto. This conclusion gave a definite direction to further search.
I understand," said the Judge, after fingering a few pages of the dispositions in front of him, "that you are a friend of the Contessa di Castagneto? Indeed, she has told us so herself." "It was very good of her to call me her friend. I am proud to hear she so considers me." "How long have you known her?" "Four or five months. Since the beginning of the last winter season in Rome."
In this way they continued, swaying, heaving, clattering, clinging, till at a point near Castagneto there was a rise in the road, and on reaching the foot of the rise the horse, who knew every inch of the way, stopped suddenly, throwing everything in the fly into a heap, and then proceeded up at the slowest of walks.
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