Not for that reason, however, was the lawyer disposed to relinquish
the idea which had occurred to him as to the possibility of
incriminating the Conte Leandro. The more circumstances of doubt it
was possible to accumulate around the facts, so much the better.
Signor Fortini thought that he saw his way clearly enough to the
means to showing that it was very presumable that the Conte Leandro
had conceived a violent and bitter hatred of the murdered woman, It
was enough to base a case for suspicion on. The lawyer had no idea
that the poet had been the murderer. He did not dream of the
possibility that he should be convicted of the crime. He had,
doubtless, been quietly in bed in Ravenna at the hour it had been
committed. But he might find it difficult to prove that he had not
quitted the city on that Wednesday morning. And the suggestion of
the possibility of his guilt would, at all events, be an element of
doubt and difficulty the more.
With these thoughts in his mind Signor Fortini suddenly changed his
immediate purpose of going to the Professore Tomosarchi; and
determined to walk as far as the Porta Nuova and make inquiry
himself of the people at the gate as to the testimony they might be
able to give respecting Paolina's exit from the city at a very early
hour on that morning. At the same time, it might be possible to lead
them into imagining that they had seen some other passenger, who
might have been the Conte Leandro.
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