"A little over a year. He acted as one of the private secretaries to His Excellency the Minister Nardini--he who ran away from Rome a little time ago, and hasn't since been heard of." "Oh! was he," I exclaimed at once, highly interested. "Nardini played a sharp game, didn't he?" "Embezzled over a million francs, they say," remarked the porter. "But whenever he came here, and it was often, he always gave me something to get a cigar with. He was very generous with the people's money, I will say that for him," and the old fellow laughed. "They say there was a lady in the case, and that's why he fled from Rome." "A lady! Who was she?" "Nobody seems to know. There's all sorts of reports about, of course. I hope the police will find him. They must arrest him some day, don't you think so, signore?" "Perhaps," I said, thinking deeply. "But I'm interested to hear about the lady. What is it you've heard?" "Only very little. According to the rumour, the police found at the Villa Verde, out at Tivoli, after he had gone, the dead body of a young lady locked in the study. It was at once hushed up, and not a word of it has been allowed to get into the papers. The Government gave orders to the police, I suppose, to suppress it, fearing to make the scandal graver. I heard it, however, on very good authority from my son who is in the _carabinieri_ and stationed at Tivoli. The body, he says, was that of a well-dressed young lady about twenty-six or seven. When the carabineers went with the _commissario_ to seal up the fugitive's effects, they found the body lying full length on the carpet. She still had her hat on and seemed as though she had suddenly fallen dead. Another curious thing is that the doctors discovered no wound, and don't seem to know what was the cause of her death." "That's strange!" I remarked. "I suppose they photographed the body?" "Of course. But the portrait hasn't been published because the police are compelled to hush up the affair." "Does your son know any further particulars, I wonder?" "No more than what he's told me. He says that quite a number of secret police agents have been over to Tivoli trying to establish the lady's identity, and that they think they know who she was. He was here only yesterday and we were talking about it." "And who do they think she was?" "Well, my son has, of course, a lot to do with the police, and a few days ago a friend of his of the _squadra mobile_ told him that they had established the fact that the dead girl was English." "English! Do they know her name?" "No, only they say that she was in Rome a great deal last winter, and was seen generally in the company of a tall, dark, English girl, her friend. Indeed, they say that both of them were seen in the Corso, accompanied by a middle-aged English gentleman, about a week before Nardini took to flight. They had apparently returned to Rome." "And they know none of their names?"