“Been looking for you all over ve place,” he explained breathlessly as he came up. With the greatest heartiness he shook the hands of all present except—diplomatically—Irene’s. “Vey told me in ve town vat a party of foreigners was out here looking at ve cemetery or somefing. So I buzzed after you till I saw old Ernest wiv ve car at ve side of ve road. Been underground, have you?” He looked into the dark entrance of the tomb. “No wonder I couldn’t....” Mrs. Aldwinkle cut him short. “But why aren’t you in Rome with Mr. Falx?” she asked. Lord Hovenden’s boyish, freckled face became all at once exceedingly red. “Ve fact is,” he said, looking at the ground, “vat I didn’t feel very well. Ve doctor said I ought to get away from Rome at once. Country air, you know. So I just left a note for Mr. Falx and ... and here I am.” He looked up again, smiling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI “But at Montefiascone,” said Mr. Cardan, concluding the history of the German bishop who gave the famous wine of Montefiascone its curious name, “at Montefiascone Bishop Defuk’s servant found good wine at every shop and tavern; so that when his master arrived he found the prearranged symbol chalked up on a hundred doors. _Est, Est, Est_—the town was full of them. And the Bishop was so much enraptured with the drink that he decided to settle in Montefiascone for life. For life—but he drank so much that in a very short time it turned out that he had settled here for death. They buried him in the lower church, down there. On his tombstone his servant engraved the Bishop’s portrait with this brief epitaph. ‘_Est Est Jo Defuk. Propter nimium hic est. Dominus meus mortuus est._’ Since when the wine has always been called Est Est Est. We’ll have a flask of it dry for serious drinking. And for the frivolous and the feminine, and to sip with the dessert, we’ll have a bottle of the sweet _moscato_. And now let’s see what there is to eat.” He picked up the menu and holding it out at arm’s length—for he had the long sight of old age—read out slowly, with comments, the various items. It was always Mr. Cardan who ordered the dinner (although it was generally Lord Hovenden or Mrs. Aldwinkle who paid), always Mr. Cardan; for it was tacitly admitted by every one that Mr. Cardan was the expert on food and wine, the professional eater, the learned and scholarly drinker. Seeing Mr. Cardan busy with the bill of fare, the landlord approached, rubbing his hands and cordially smiling—as well he might on a Rolls-Royce-full of foreigners—to take orders and give advice. “The fish,” he confided to Mr. Cardan, “the fish is something special.” He put his fingers to his lips and kissed them. “It comes from Bolsena, from the lake, down there.” He pointed out of the window at the black night. Somewhere, far down through the darkness, lay the Lake of Bolsena.