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Updated: May 6, 2025
Dismayed, yet not entirely discouraged, by what he had learned, Blake caught the first train back to Messina and that evening found him at Neri's rooms. The Colonel was delighted to see him, but could tell him little more than Aliandro or the notary. "Do you really believe the Countess left Sicily to travel?" Blake asked him. "To you I will confess that I do not.
Leaving the main road by a driveway, the three horsemen swung through spacious grounds and into a courtyard behind the house, where an old man came shuffling slowly forward, his wrinkled face puckered into a smile of welcome. "Ha! Aliandro!" cried the Count. "What do I see? The rheumatism is gone at last, grazie Dio!"
Norvin reasoned silently that if this were indeed true it more than confirmed his fears for the Countess, and after a brief hesitation he told the soldier what he had learned at his visit to Terranova. Neri rose and paced the room in agitation. "Oh! She is mad indeed!" he exclaimed. "What can she do that we have not already done? Aliandro? Bah!
Look at me and tell me where your mistress has gone." Aliandro arose and peered into his visitor's face, wagging his loose jaws excitedly. "As God is my judge," he declared, finally, "I believe it is, Che Dio! Who would have expected to see you? Yes, yes! I remember as if it were yesterday when you came riding up with that most illustrious gentleman who now sits in Paradise.
Now it struck him as beyond belief that Margherita should really do this. Aliandro was continuing: "It is work for young hands, Excellency. Old people grow weary and forget, especially women. Now that Lucrezia, she is a fine child; she can hate like the devil himself and she is as silent as a Mafioso.
Norvin felt some relief at this intelligence, reflecting that Margherita would hardly draw her aunt into an enterprise which promised to be dangerous. As he considered the matter further he began to doubt the truth of Aliandro's story, for the old fellow seemed half daft. Perhaps the Countess and her aunt were merely traveling and Aliandro had construed their trip into a journey of vengeance.
It stretched and shortened rapidly now, in the most extraordinary fashion, for the Count had a knack of pleasing people. "And where are the ladies?" Savigno inquired. Aliandro cocked a watery eye at the heavens and replied: "They will be upon the loggiato at this hour, Illustrissimo. The Donna Teresa will have a book."
"And yet each day I declare to myself: 'Aliandro, that rascal, is growing younger as the hours go by. It is well we are not rivals in love or I should be forced to hate him!" The old man chuckled and beamed upon Savigno, who proceeded to make Norvin known.
After an instant more, he queried, "You are perhaps a friend of that thrice-blessed angel, my padrona?" With an exclamation of relief Norvin laid a hand upon the old fellow's shoulder and shook him gently. "Have your eyes failed you, my good Aliandro?" he cried. "Don't you recognize the American? the Signore Blake, who came here with the Count of Martinello?
When Norvin had put himself in possession of all that Aliandro knew he retraced his steps to the village, where the notary confirmed practically all the old man had said, but declared positively that the Countess and her admirable aunt were traveling for pleasure. "What else would take them abroad?" he inquired. "Nothing!
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