anced upon this height; but music there was, for a nightingale
bubbled his liquid notes in a great myrtle not ten yards from where
the still shape lay.

The dark, approaching figure saw the object of his search and came
forward. His purpose was to bury the victim, whom he had lured
hither before destroying, and then remove any trace that might
linger upon the spot where the body lay. He bent down, put his hands
to the jacket of the motionless man, and then, as he exerted his
strength, a strange, hideous thing happened. The body under his
touch dropped to pieces. Its head rolled away; its trunk became
dismembered and he fell backward heaving an amorphous torso into the
air. For, exerting the needful pressure to move a heavy weight, he
found none and tumbled to the ground, holding up a coat stuffed with
grass.

The man was on his feet in an instant, fearing an ambush; but
astonishment opened his mouth.

"Corpo di Bacco!" he cried, and the exclamation rang in a note of
something like terror against the cliffs and upon the ear of his
companion. Yet no swift retribution stayed his steps; no shot rang
out to arrest his progress. He leaped away, dodging and bounding
like a deer to escape the expected bullet and then disappeared
behind the boulder. But neither rascal delayed a moment. Their
mingled steps instantly rang out; then the clatter faded swiftly
upon the night and silence returned.

For ten minutes nothing happened. Next, out of a lair not fifteen
yards from the distorted dummy, rose a figure that shone white as
snow under the moon. Mark Brendon approached the snare that he
himself had set, shook the grass out of his coat, lifted his hat
from the ball of leaves it covered, and presently drew on his
knickerbockers, having emptied them of their stuffing. He was cold
and calm. He had learned more than he expected to learn; for that
startled exclamation left no doubt at all concerning one of the
grave-diggers. It was Giuseppe Doria who had come to move the body,
and there seemed little doubt that Brendon's would-be murderer was
the other.

"'Corpo di Bacco,' perhaps, but not corpo di Brendon, my friend,"
murmured Mark to himself. Then he turned northward, traversed some
harsh thickets that barred the plateau, and reached a mule track, a
mile beneath, which he had discovered before daylight waned. It led
to Menaggio through chestnut woods.

The operations of the detective from the moment that he fell
headlong, app