A few moments after the two men had disappeared I sauntered past and
glanced inside. The ceiling was low, and blackened by the lamp
suspended in the centre. Upon shelves around were many rush-covered
flasks of wine, while at the end was a pewter counter where a coarse
tousled-haired woman was standing washing glasses.
At the table three forbidding-looking men, with their felt hats drawn
over their eyes, were drinking and throwing dice, shouting excitedly at
each throw, while one man rather better dressed was sitting apart
writing a letter, with a long cigar between his lips.
There was, however, no sign of the doctor and his companion who, it
seemed, had passed straight into the room beyond. It was hardly the
place in which one would have expected to find the owner of that
Dorsetshire manor, and I now saw the reason why the doctor had, ever and
anon, looked round as though in suspicion that they might be followed.
They had an important appointment there, without a doubt. And,
moreover, they were no strangers to the place.
I would have given worlds to have been able to get a peep behind that
closed door.
I was, however, forced to remain idling up and down the street, watched
and commented upon by the groups of women gossiping at their doors, and
scowled at by the men who seemed to lurk smoking in the shadows. They
recognised by my clothes and my walk that I was a _forestiero_, a
stranger, and wondered probably whether I was not an agent of police.
After half an hour Miller and his friend came out, accompanied by a
young girl, hatless, as is the mode among the people, and with a bright
yellow scarf twisted around her neck. She was about seventeen,
good-looking, wore big gold ear-rings and showed an even set of white
teeth as she spoke to Miller and laughed.
Together they set off along the Lugo Tevere, crossed the Ponte S.
Angelo, and plunged into that labyrinth of narrow dirty streets that lay
between the river and St Peter's. Presently, in a dark street off the
Borgo Pia, the girl left them, and halting they stood talking together
after lighting cigarettes.
The girl hurried on and was lost in the darkness, yet they were
evidently awaiting her return.
My own position was a difficult one, for I feared that at any moment
Gavazzi's quick eyes might detect me and point me out to Miller who
would recognise me. For fully a quarter of an hour the pair remained
there, until at last the girl returned, bringing with her a young man
about twenty-two, a low-born swaggering young fellow who wore his soft
grey hat askew, and walked with his hands in his pockets, a man of
distinctly criminal type who had probably never done an honest day's
work in his life. By the light of the street lamp I saw that he bore
across his cheek an ugly cicatrice from an old knife-wound, and that
upon his chin was a mole upon which the hair was allowed to grow. The
latter was significant--it was the mark of that powerful secret society
of criminals, the Camorra.