“But you did not come here merely to boast, I am sure, Signor Giovacchino.  You are going to tell me what you have been able to learn, eh?” said the Commissary.

“Boast, no, not I!  There’s nothing to boast of.  Besides, you know my interest in the matter is of a different nature from yours, Signor Pietro.  All I want is to clear my friend and client, the Marchese Ludovico.  You, of course, are anxious to bring the crime home to somebody.”

“True,” said the Commissary, nodding his head.

“And of course, therefore, any light I can throw upon the matter, I am ready enough to bring to you, unless it were of a nature to incriminate the Marchese,” returned the lawyer.

“Of course, just so.  And what you have learned this morning—­”

“Tell’s all t’other way; I have no difficulty in allowing that, on the first blush of the matter, I felt no doubt that the Marchese was the guilty party.  It only shows that one ought always to have doubts of everything.  It looked so very bad.  The Marchese takes the girl into the wood, comes back without her, and very shortly afterwards she is found where he left her, murdered.  And he is known to have had the greatest possible interest in getting rid of her.  Would it not have seemed a clear case to any one?”

“So one would have said indeed,” assented the Commissary.

“Well, the Marchese had nothing to do with it.  At the present moment I feel—­well, hardly any doubt at all that the deed was done by the girl Paolina Foscarelli.”

“That’s my notion too,” said the Commissary, taking a pinch of snuff, and proferring his box to his visitor; “but what is the new evidence.”

“Well, the girl lives, it seems, with an old woman, a country-woman of hers, a certain Orsola Steno.  And this morning the old lady comes to my studio for the avowed purpose of begging me not to countenance in any way the very mistaken notion that her adopted daughter had murdered the prima donna; the truth being, as she was good enough to inform me, that the latter had committed suicide.”

“Bah, what senseless nonsense!” interrupted the Commissary, indignantly.

“Of course.  I pointed out to the old lady that her theory was, according to the medical testimony, simply impossible; but that naturally made not the slightest difference in her opinion of the matter.  And then, aided by a little gentle assistance, she prattled on, an old fool, admitting, or insisting rather, that there had been bitter hatred and animosity between Paolina and the murdered woman; that Paolina had conceived the bitterest jealousy of the singer; that she was persuaded that the latter was scheming with a set purpose to lure her acknowledged lover, the Marchese, away from her; that she was further persuaded that the singer nourished the bitterest hatred of her, Paolina.  What do you say to that, Signor Commissary?  How does the land lie now, eh?” said the lawyer, triumphantly, in conclusion.