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Updated: April 30, 2025
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.
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.
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.
When, with Lola and Madame, I returned home a week later and explained the whole of my adventures, Rayne sat for a few moments silent. Then, as I looked, I saw vengeance written upon his face. "I suspected that she was playing me false, and selling stuff in secret through that fellow Zuccari! She is carrying on the business by herself. I now have proof of it and I shall take my own steps!
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.
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?
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.
"If she is so friendly with this banker whose past is quite obscure, it may be her hand which takes the stuff and passes it on to Zuccari, who in turn sells it to Hauser." With that theory I agreed. On the following day I took train into Naples, and that afternoon I called upon the Marchesa.
You married a certain man who is to-day in a monastery at Signa in the Val d'Arno, and though you pose as the loving wife of one of Italy's premier admirals, you are a noted jewel-thief, and commit these robberies in order to supply your bogus banker friend Zuccari with funds.
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.
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