“Nothing further of—­of—­Robert?”

“Not a trace or sign of him.  I’m sure that everything that the wit of man can do has been done; and many clever local people, including the County Commissioner and the highest authorities, have helped Mr. Brendon; but not a glimpse of poor Uncle Robert has been seen and there is nothing to show what happened to him after that terrible night.”

“Or to brother Bendigo, either, for that matter,” murmured Mr. Redmayne.  “It is your poor husband’s case over again—­blood, alas, but nought else!”

Jenny was haggard and worn.  She devoted herself to the old man’s comfort and hoped that the journey would not do him any hurt.

Mr. Albert Redmayne slept well, but the morning found him very depressed and melancholy.  Things, dreadful enough at a distance, seemed far worse now that he found himself in the theatre of their occurrence.  He maintained a long conversation with Mark Brendon and cross-questioned Doria; but their information did not inspire him to a suggestion and, after twenty-four hours, it was clear that the little man could be of no assistance to anybody.  He was frightened and awe-stricken.  He detested “Crow’s Nest” and the melancholy murmur of the sea.  He showed the keenest desire to return home at the earliest opportunity and was exceedingly nervous after dark.

“Oh, that Peter Ganns were here!” he exclaimed again and again, as a comment to every incident unfolded by Brendon or Jenny; and then, when she asked him if it might be possible to summon Peter Ganns, Mr. Redmayne explained that he was an American beyond their reach at present.

“Mr. Ganns,” he said, “is my best friend in the world—­save and excepting one man only.  He—­my first and most precious intimate—­dwells at Bellagio, on the opposite side of Lake Como from myself.  Signor Virgilio Poggi is a bibliophile of European eminence and the most brilliant of men—­a great genius and my dearest associate for twenty-five years.  But Peter Ganns also is a very astounding person—­a detective officer by profession—­but a man of many parts and full of such genuine understanding of humanity that to know him is to gain priceless insight.

“I myself lack that intimate knowledge of character which is his native gift.  Books I know better than men, and it was my peculiar acquaintance with books that brought Ganns and me together in New York.  There I served him well in an amazing police case and aided him to prove a crime, the discovery of which turned upon a certain paper manufactured for the Medici.  But a greater thing than this criminal incident sprang from it; and that is my friendship with the wonderful Peter.  Not above half a dozen books have taught me more than that man.  He is a Machiavelli on the side of the angels.”

He expatiated upon Mr. Peter Ganns until his listeners wearied of the subject.  Then Giuseppe Doria intervened with a personal problem.  He desired to be dismissed and was anxious to learn from Brendon if the law permitted him to leave the neighbourhood.