“Bah, nonsense!  He was vexed that he had not seen it himself.  How should he know anything about it?”

“I don’t know how; but I know him, and his ways,” said the first speaker.

“But if he thinks he has any guess at the murderer, why don’t he say it at once?” asked the younger lad.

“Ah, yes, I think so; I should like to see him at it.  That’s not his business, that’s the lawyer’s business.  You may depend on his keeping his own secret, if he has got one.  The governor likes quiet sailing in still water, he does.  But if he did not see something more in this little bit of steel and atom of wax, that have stopped a life so cleverly, than the mere things themselves and the effect of them,—­why, then, I know nothing about old Buonaventura Tomosarchi, that’s all.”

“How see something more?” said the younger lad, open-eyed.

“Saw who put ’em there, Ninny.  It is not everybody who could be up to such a dodge; and I feel sure the governor could make a shrewd guess who did that clever trick.”

CHAPTER X

Public Opinion

The post-mortem examination had taken place at an early hour, before the members of the idler portion of the society of the city had come forth from their homes.  An Italian idler—­one of the class who, in common Italian phrase, are able to “fare vita beata,” to lead a happy life, i. e. to do nothing whatever from morning till night—­an Italian of that favoured class never passes his hours in his own house, or dwelling of whatever kind it may be.  As soon as he is up and dressed he goes out into the city to enjoy the air and sunshine if it be fine weather, to saunter in cafes or at the Circolo, if it rain.

Professor Tomosarchi and lawyer Fortini had been earlier afoot, and the scene described in the last chapter had passed, and the general results of the examination were beginning to be known in the city, when the jeunesse doree of Ravenna began to assemble at the Circolo.  It was known also by that time that the young Venetian artist, with whom Ludovico was well known to be on intimate terms of some kind or other, had been arrested at her lodging at an early hour that morning, on suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of La Bianca.

Of course that terrible event continued more than ever to occupy the attention of all Ravenna, almost to the exclusion of every other topic of conversation.  It was very easy to understand the nature of the motive, which might be supposed to have led Paolina to do the deed.  And when it became known farther, that the means by which the death of the victim had been brought about were such as might easily have been accomplished by the weakest woman’s hand; and that it had been discovered that Paolina had been in the Pineta—­for such was the not quite accurate form which the report assumed just about the time when the crime must have been committed, the general opinion inclined very much to the notion that she, the stranger from Venice, was, indeed, the assassin.