Signor Fortini had apparently got some other and newly-conceived
thought in his mind. He looked two or three times shrewdly and
furtively into the face of the young Marchese; and closely
compressed his thin lips together, and drew into a knot the shaggy
eye-brows over his clear and thoughtful eyes. Some notion had been
suggested to his mind which very plainly he did not like.
At the gate nothing had been seen of the object of their search. The
octroi officers perfectly well remembered seeing the Marchese
Ludovico, who was well known to them by sight, drive through the
gate very early that morning in a bagarino with a lady. One man had
recognised the lady as the prima donna at the opera. And they were
very sure that she had not returned to the city since, at least by
that gate.
But one of the officers volunteered the information that another
young lady had that morning passed out of the city on foot a little
before the time at which the bagarino had passed with the Marchese
and the prima donna. And the men, after some consultation together,
were sure that neither had that young lady returned by the gate they
guarded.
Ludovico looked at the lawyer, and the lawyer looked at Ludovico;
but neither of them could suggest anything in explanation of so
strange a circumstance.
"I saw nothing of any such person either in the Pineta or on the
road," said Ludovico.
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