"Perhaps no man did so," said the lawyer.
"Case of death from natural causes, you mean? I am afraid not, I am
afraid not. Can't say for certain yet; but, judging from
appearances, I fear there is no likelihood that such was the case,"
rejoined the Professor.
"I was not thinking of that," replied Fortini. "I meant that what a
man could hardly have had the heart to do might, perhaps, have been
done by a woman. Beauty is not, I fancy, always found to produce
quite the same sort of effect on another female as it is wont to
produce on the other sex."
"Might have been done by a woman? That seems hardly likely, I think,
caro mio. In the Pineta at that hour of the morning? Che! What woman
is likely to have been there?"
"Well, we happen to know that there was a woman very near the spot
where the crime was committed at the time that it was committed."
"You don't say so?" interrupted the anatomist. "Good heavens! This
is quite new to me, and, of course, most important. I am delighted
to hear what seems to cast so strong a doubt on the guilt of the
Marchesino."
"And that is not all. We know further," continued the lawyer,
eagerly, "that the woman in question had the strongest of all the
possible motives that ever influence a female mind to hate--to
desire the death of this poor girl that now lies here.
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