you thinking of taking it,
signore?"

Jean started. It had not occurred to him that the house might be
empty. "I don't know," he answered cautiously. "Has it been to let
long?"

"Oh, yes," the man said. "The Princess Tor di Rocca spent her last years
there, alone, and after her death the agent in Rome found tenants. But
lately no one has come to it, even to see." He lowered his voice. "The
place has a bad name hereabouts. The _contadini_--rough, ignorant folk,
signore--say she still walks in the garden at moonrise, waiting for the
husband and son who never came; and the women who go to wash their
linen in the lake will not come back that way at night for fear of
seeing her dead eyes peering at them through the bars of the gate."

"Ah, that is very interesting," Jean said appreciatively. He finished
his coffee, paid for it with a piece of silver, and waited to light a
cigarette before he went out.

Vincenzo sat still in the car, a model of patient impassivity, but he
turned a hungry eye on his master as he came down the steps.

"You can go and get something to eat. I shall drive up to the Galleria
di Sopra, and you must follow me there. You will find the car at the
side of the road. Stay with it until I come, and if anyone asks
questions you need not answer them."

Jean drove up the steep hill towards the lake. The rain was still
heavy, and the squalid streets of the little town were running with
mud. He turned to the left by the Calvary at the foot of the ilex
avenue by the Capuchin church, and stopped the car some way further
down the road. The lane the waiter had told him of was not hard to
find. It was a narrow path between high walls of olive orchards; it
led straight down to the lake, and the entrance to the Villino was
quite close to the water's edge. Nothing could be seen of it from the
lane but the name painted on the gate-posts and one glimpse of a
shuttered window, forlorn and viewless as a blind eye, and half hidden
by flowering laurels. Jean looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to
twelve, and she had written "after noon," but he could not be sure
that she had not come already, and since he had heard the name of Tor
di Rocca he was more than ever anxious to be with her.

He tried the gate but it was locked; there was nothing for it but to
climb the wall, and as he was light and active he scrambled over
without much difficulty and landed in a green tangle of roses and wild
vines. He knocked at the