In fact there was no doubt about it:  van Koppen had the gifts of making himself beloved.  But nobody’s company was more markedly to his taste than that of Count Caloveglia.  The two old men spent hours together in Caloveglia’s shady courtyard, eating candied fruits, sipping home-made liqueurs of peaches or mountain-herbs and talking—­ever talking.  Between them there existed some strong and strange bond of friendship or interest.  Speculation was rife as to its origin, its meaning, its end.

What was all the talk about?

Andrea, the devoted retainer, however artfully approached on the subject, was ambiguous to a distressing degree.  It was understood, none the less, that Count Caloveglia was perhaps of use to the other in the accumulation of classical relics which—­the Italian Government forbidding the export of antique works of art—­were smuggled at night-time on board the FLUTTERBY to be incorporated in a magnificent museum somewhere out West, a museum which was destined to be presented by van Koppen as a gift to the great American people.  Again, it might be inferred that these two elderly gentlemen, choice representatives of two conflicting civilizations, widely experienced and profoundly versed, each in his own way, in the knowledge of mankind, took a sincere and childlike pleasure in one another’s society, going over past times and anxious, to the very end of life, to add something fresh to their store of learning.

Both these explanations were sufficiently plausible to be straightway dismissed by the majority as inadequate to account for the phenomenon.  They inclined, rather, to adopt an alternative and alluring theory propounded by the Commissioner’s lady.  This theory laid it down that the American was bargaining for the Count’s daughter, a pretty girl whom the old ruffian had shut up in a convent somewhere in anticipation of the day when a purchaser, rich enough to content his inordinate lust for gold, should present himself.  Van Koppen was that purchaser.  They had now been haggling, she said, for two or three years; a denouement might be expected at any moment.  If the Count’s avarice could be appeased the unhappy child might expect to find herself, with as little delay as possible, an inmate of the floating harem on board the FLUTTERBY.

No visitor was safe from her lively tongue, and alas, certain little details, insignificant in themselves, gave ground for the ungenerous hypothesis that van Koppen, like all the rest of them, had a cloven hoof.  There was the usual “dark side” to this otherwise charming and profitable stranger, the usual mystery, the usual fly in the ointment.  In the first place it was a singular fact, much commented on, that nobody had ever been invited on board the yacht.  That alone was suspicious.  If you want to get anything out of old Koppen—­so ran a local saying—­don’t propose A visit