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The great clock over the stables struck eleven, then the quarter, then half-past. The familiar chimes floated in through the open windows. A wild hope came with the sound. Marcello, weak as he was, had died under ether, and that was the end. Corbario trembled from head to foot. The clock struck the third quarter, but no other sound broke the stillness of the near noon-tide.
"Why do you say 'poor boy' in that tone? Do you think he is so much to be pitied?" "A little, certainly." Corbario smiled. "I don't see why." "Women never do, when a man is in love!" "Women" the flattery was subtle and Aurora's face cleared. Corbario was a man of the world, without doubt, and he had called her a woman, in a most natural way, as if she had been at least twenty years old.
"I am sometimes inclined to believe it too," Corbario answered encouragingly. "And I am quite sure that it would do me good to forget all about them and live as if there were nothing the matter with me. Don't you think so yourself?" Corbario made a gesture of doubt, as if it were possible after all.
It certainly would not be safe to release Settimia yet; for if Corbario were really in the house, the two together could easily overpower one woman, though she was strong. "I am sorry that I cannot untie you yet," Regina said, and with a glance at the prostrate figure she took up her candle-stick, stuck her pin through her hair before the mirror, and went to the door.
He had probably lost it in some wild battle of his stormy youth, fought almost to death against the huge Campagna sheep-dogs; or perhaps a wolf had got it, or perhaps he had never had a tail at all. Ercole had probably forgotten, and it did not really matter much. "Corbario is an assassin," he said. "Remember that, Nino.
"In the meantime," said the Chief, rising to go away, "we will put him in a private room, where we shall not be watched by everybody when we come to see him. I have funds from Corbario to pay any possible expenses in the case." "Who is that man?" asked the Superintendent. "There has been a great deal of talk about him in the papers since his stepson was lost.
Corbario had almost succeeded in his work of destruction. He would not succeed now, for the worst danger was past, and Marcello had found his feet after being almost lost in the quicksand through which he had been led.
"Do you remember that discovery of mine, that I called 'the sleeping death'?" "Yes. What has that to do with it?" Marcello's expression changed. "Corbario stole one of the tablets from the tube in my pocket, while I was asleep that night." "What?" Marcello began to grow pale. "Your mother died asleep," said Kalmon in a very low voice.
Some people thought that it was odd that the Signora Corbario, who was a saint if ever there was one, should have grown so fond of the Contessa, for the latter had seen stormy days in years gone by; and of course the ill-disposed gossips made up their minds that the Contessa was trying to catch Marcello for her daughter Aurora, though the child was barely seventeen.
But the Chief of Police was not disturbed in his belief, and after he had smoked several cigarettes very thoughtfully in his private office, he wrote a telegram to Corbario, advising him to come back to Rome at once. He was surprised to receive an answer from Folco late that night, inquiring why he was wanted. To this he replied in a second telegram of more length, which explained matters clearly.
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