"Better let me tackle her, sir," suggested Greatorex with easy confidence. "It's probably a sub." The sportive offer was declined by a smile and a shake of the head. Carrados turned to his attendant. "I shall be in the study, Parkinson. Show her there in three minutes. You stay and have another cigarette, Greatorex. By that time she will either have gone or have interested me." In three minutes' time Parkinson threw open the study door. "The lady, sir," he announced. Could he have seen, Carrados would have received the impression of a plainly, almost dowdily, dressed young woman of buxom figure. She wore a light veil, but it was ineffective in concealing the unattraction of the face beneath. The features were swart and the upper lip darkened with the more than incipient moustache of the southern brunette. Worse remained, for a disfiguring rash had assailed patches of her skin. As she entered she swept the room and its occupant with a quiet but comprehensive survey. "Please take a chair, Madame. You wished to see me?" The ghost of a demure smile flickered about her mouth as she complied, and in that moment her face seemed less uncomely. Her eye lingered for a moment on a cabinet above the desk, and one might have noticed that her eye was very bright. Then she replied. "You are Signor Carrados, in--in the person?" Carrados made his smiling admission and changed his position a fraction--possibly to catch her curiously pitched voice the better. "The great collector of the antiquities?" "I do collect a little," he admitted guardedly. "You will forgive me, Signor, if my language is not altogether good. When I live at Naples with my mother we let boardings, chiefly to Inglish and Amerigans. I pick up the words, but since I marry and go to live in Calabria my Inglish has gone all red--no, no, you say, rusty. Yes, that is it; quite rusty." "It is excellent," said Carrados. "I am sure that we shall understand one another perfectly." The lady shot a penetrating glance but the blind man's expression was merely suave and courteous. Then she continued: "My husband is of name Ferraja--Michele Ferraja. We have a vineyard and a little property near Forenzana." She paused to examine the tips of her gloves for quite an appreciable moment. "Signor," she burst out, with some vehemence, "the laws of my country are not good at all." "From what I hear on all sides," said Carrados, "I am afraid that your country is not alone." "There is at Forenzana a poor labourer, Gian Verde of name," continued the visitor, dashing volubly into her narrative. "He is one day digging in the vineyard, the vineyard of my husband, when his spade strikes itself upon an obstruction. 'Aha,' says Gian, 'what have we here?' and he goes down upon his knees to see. It is an oil jar of red earth, Signor, such as was anciently used, and in it is filled with silver money.