"
"And the one certain thing is, that the unlucky Diva lies dead, and
was murdered by somebody. Upon my life, it is the queerest thing I
ever heard of."
"What do you think of it, Manutoli?" said one of the speakers in the
foregoing dialogue to the Baron, who was an older man than most of
the others there.
"My notion is that the girl is the guilty party," said Manutoli. "As
for Leandro, it seems too absurd. I don't think he has courage
enough to kill a cat: Besides, I daresay he hated La Bianca quite
enough to slander her, and backbite, and that sort of thing; but
murder--"
"She made fun of him. Leandro don't like to be laughed at,--
specially by the women, and, more specially still, when other
fellows are by to hear it and then those poets are always such
desperate fellows I should not wonder--" said one of the young men.
In the meantime, while talk of this sort was going on at the
Circolo, Signor Fortini was on his way out to St. Apollinare in
Classe, according to the intention he had expressed on the preceding
evening; but he was not making the expedition alone. Signor Pietro
Logarini, the Papal Commissioner of Police, was bound on the same
errand. The old lawyer, as he passed under the gateway of the Porta
Nuova in his comfortable caleche, overtook Signor Logarini, who was
about to proceed to St.
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