The man who now came into the room was a very different looking person from the wild, unkempt creature who had confronted Natalie Lind in Curzon Street. The voluminous red beard and mustache had been cropped; he wore the clothes of a decent workman, with a foreign touch here and there; he was submissive and docile in look. "Well, where have you been, my friend?" Calabressa said to him in Italian. Kirski glanced at Gathorne Edwards, and began to speak to him in Russian. "Will you explain for me, little father? I have been to many churches." "The police will not suspect him if he goes there," said Calabressa, laughing. "And to the shops in the Piazza San Marco, where the pictures are of the saints." "Well?" "Little father, I can find no one of the saints so beautiful as that one in England that the Master Calabressa knows." Calabressa laughed again. "Allons, mon grand enfant! Tell him that if it is only a likeness he is hunting for, I can show him one." With that he took out from his breast-pocket a small pocket book, opened it, found a certain photograph, and put it on the table, shoving it over toward Kirski. The dim-eyed Russian did not dare to touch it; but he stooped over it, and he put one trembling hand on each side of it, as if he would concentrate the light, and gazed at this portrait of Natalie Lind until he could see nothing at all for the tears that came into his eyes. Then he rose abruptly, and said something rapidly to Edwards. "He says, 'Take it away, or you will make me a thief. It is worth more than all the diamonds in the world.'" Calabressa did not laugh this time. He regarded the man with a look in which there was as much pity as curiosity. "The poor devil!" he said. "Tell him I will ask the beautiful saint whom he worships so to send him a portrait of herself with her own hands. I will. She will do as much as that for her friend Calabressa." This had scarcely been translated to Kirski when, in his sudden gratitude, he caught Calabressa's hand and kissed it. "Tell him, also," Calabressa said, good-naturedly, "that if he is hungry before dinner-time there is sausage and bread and beer in the cupboard. But he must not stir out till we come back. Allons, mon bon camarade!" Calabressa lit another cigarette, and the two companions sallied forth. They stepped into a gondola, and presently they were being borne swiftly over the plain of light-green water. By-and-by they plunged into a varied and picturesque mass of shipping, and touched land again in front of a series of stores. The gondola was ordered to await their return. Calabressa passed without question through the lower floor of this particular building, where the people were busy with barrels of flour, and led the way up-stairs until he stopped at a certain door. He knocked thrice and entered. There was a small, dark man seated at a table, apparently engaged with some bills of lading. "You are punctual, Brother Calabressa."