“And how anxious he seemed to say everything that appeared to make it bear hard upon Ludovico?”

“Yes, and. contradicted himself.  First, he knew about it, and then he knew nothing.”

“Per Dio!  I don’t know what to think of it.”

“So, then, there are now three persons suspected—­Ludovico; and the Venetian girl, and the Conte Leandro?”

“And all three were not far from the spot where the deed was done, and all three had motives, more or less credible, for doing it.”

“Ludovico, because his uncle was going to marry the woman, which would have cut him out of his inheritance; the Venetian girl, because she loved Ludovico, and saw him making love to the poor Diva; and Leandro, because she snubbed him, and laughed at him, and would have nothing to say to either him or his verses.”

“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. Apollinare on foot, and who had paused at the gate for the purpose of making some inquiries of the officials there.

“Good morning, Signor Pietro.  I suppose we are bound for the same place; will you permit me to offer you a seat in my carriage?” said the lawyer.

“Thanks, Signor Giovacchino, I shall be glad of the lift.  Yes, I suppose we are about the same business, and a bad one it is.  I was making a few inquiries at the gate; but I don’t see that there is much to be gleaned there,” said the Commissary, as he got into the lawyer’s carriage.

“Well, it seems to me that we have reaped a pretty good harvest there already,” returned the lawyer.

“Enough to make the matter one of the most puzzling I ever had to do with,” returned the Commissary.  “You have heard, I suppose, that we have arrested the girl Paolina Foscarelli, and the Conte Leandro Lombardoni?”