Behind them an admiring and still unsilenced throng applauded their departure, even followed a short distance along the quay and over the ancient bridge. “My heavens!” fumed Chick, “can’t they understand! I’ve said ‘perdita,’ and ‘piccolo’ till I’m black in the face.” But Cynthia was enjoying herself. “If you’d tell them a little more,” she soothed, slipping her hand into his arm. “Or if you’d even tell me. ... What in the name of Agatha _have_ you lost, anyway?” The police were speaking again. Cynthia thought she caught the word. ... “Fondere.” Did that mean “found?” The Lost and Found Department perhaps? She made that suggestion to Chick. A few more streets, a bridge or two, a narrow sun-lit way and one of the innumerable palaces which seemed now to be a police station, with the crown and arms of Italy above the door. Beyond this a damp and cheerless room, none too clean and the equivalent of a desk sergeant who drew towards him a large book and set down their names, Chick’s and Cynthia’s, and their _pensione_. Dum and Dee were doing all the explaining but in Italian far too rapid for Cynthia to follow. It might yet prove that she and Chick had defied municipal authority by starting a barter shop on the quayside, one decaying golash for a wilted cabbage. Tweedledum and Tweedledee had finished, the man at the desk made a gesture. An attendant opened a door, flung back a huge iron grill that closed off about half the room behind it and signed for them to enter. Cynthia clutched at Chick’s arm. Oh dear! Frankly uncertain she followed Chick’s slow steps, the attendant close behind, Dum and Dee bringing up in the rear. Then the attendant switched on a light, a series of lights disclosing what might have been a wine cellar. But instead of wine ... Cynthia choked back her laughter and pointed. A bicycle, a shelf of gloves, a regular store of ancient umbrellas and sunshades, piles and piles of books, mostly Baedeckers by their moldy red bindings, boots, odd bits of clothing, a coffeepot, market loads still knotted in capacious handkerchiefs, a coffin, a load of bricks. ... Chick’s face was flaming. “How in the name of goodness can we tell whether it’s here or not!” He turned to Cynthia. “Don’t they have a list of things somewhere, and the times they were found? Tell them it’s small, small. And done up in white paper and a box.” “I know,” Cynthia nodded solemnly. “A pound of butter, Chick dear. Oh Chick, you weren’t going to ask me to set up housekeeping were you?” But at the hurt expression in his eyes her levity dimmed. “I’ll tell them you lost it last night, is that it?” And turning to Dum and Dee, carefully choosing her words, she managed to convey the idea.