“Aurora?” He repeated the name almost eagerly.

“Yes.  You had been talking to Signorina Aurora dell’ Armi.  You remember that?”

The light faded suddenly.

“I thought I remembered something,” answered Marcello.  “Aurora?  Aurora?  No, it is gone.  I was dreaming again.  I want to sleep now.”

The Chief stood upright and looked at the Superintendent, who looked at him, and both shook their heads.  Then they asked what the visiting doctor had said, and what directions he had given about Marcello’s treatment.

“I am sure it is he,” said the Chief of Police when they were closeted in the Superintendent’s office, five minutes later.  “I have studied his photograph every day for nearly three months.  Look at it.”

He produced a good-sized photograph of Marcello which had been taken about a year earlier, but was the most recent.  The Superintendent looked at it critically, and said it was not much like the patient.  The official objected that a man who was half dead of fever and had lain starving for weeks, heaven only knew where, could hardly be quite himself in appearance.  The Superintendent pointed out that this was precisely the difficulty; the photograph was not like the sick man.  But the Chief politely insisted that it was.  They differed altogether on this point, but quarrelled over it in the most urbane manner possible.

The Superintendent suggested that it would be easy to identify Marcello Consalvi, by bringing people who knew him to his bedside, servants and others.  The official answered that he should prefer to be sure of everything before calling in any one else.  The patient had evidently lost his memory by some accident, and if he could not recall his own name it was not likely that he could recognise a face.  Servants would swear that it was he, or not he, just as their interest suggested.  Most of the people of his own class who knew him were out of town at the present season; and besides, the upper classes were not, in the Chief’s opinion, a whit more intelligent or trustworthy than those that served them.  The world, said the Chief, was an exceedingly bad place.  That this was true, the Superintendent could not doubt, and he admitted the fact; but he was not sure how the Chief was applying the statement of it in his own reasoning.  Perhaps he thought that some persons might have an interest in recognising Marcello.

“In the meantime,” said the Chief, rising to go away, “we will put him in a private room, where we shall not be watched by everybody when we come to see him.  I have funds from Corbario to pay any possible expenses in the case.”

“Who is that man?” asked the Superintendent.  “There has been a great deal of talk about him in the papers since his stepson was lost.  What was he before he married the rich widow?”

The Chief of Police did not reply at once, but lit a cigarette preparatory to going away, smoothed his hat on his arm, and flicked a tiny speck of dust from the lapel of his well-made coat.  Then he smiled pleasantly and gave his answer.