alone in a vast palace, in the heart of Rome, knowing very few people and seeing hardly any one except Volterra.  The Baron himself was apparently quite indifferent to any risk in the matter, and yet, as a staunch monarchist and supporter of the ministry then in office, it might have been expected that he would not openly associate with the monarchy’s professed enemies.  That was his affair, as Malipieri had frankly told him at the beginning.  For the rest, the young architect smiled as he thought of the time and money the government was wasting on the supposition that he was plotting against it, but it annoyed him to find that certain faces of men in the streets were becoming familiar to him, quiet, blank faces of respectable middle-aged men, who always avoided meeting his eyes, and were very polite in standing aside to let him pass them on the pavement.  There were now three whom he knew by sight, and he saw one of them every time he went out of the house.  He knew what that meant.  He had not the smallest doubt but that all three reported what they saw of his movements to Signor Vittorio Bruni, every day, in some particularly quiet little office in one of the government buildings connected with the Ministry of the Interior.  It troubled him very little, since he was quite innocent of any political machinations for the present.

He had determined from the first not to employ any workmen to help him unless it should be absolutely necessary.  He was strong and his practical experience in Carthage had taught him the use of pick and crowbar.  Masin was equal to two ordinary men for such work, and could be trusted to hold his tongue.

Malipieri told the porter that he was exploring the foundations before attempting to strengthen them, and from time to time he gave him a little money.  At first the old man offered to call Toto, who had always served the house, he said; but Malipieri answered that no help was needed in a mere preliminary exploration, and that another man would only be in the way.  He made no secret of the fact that he was working with his own hands, however.  Every morning, he and his servant went down into the north-west cellars by a winding staircase that was entered from a passage between the disused stables and the empty coach-house.  Like every large Roman palace, the Palazzo Conti had two arched entrances, one of which had never been opened except on important occasions, when the carriages that drove in on the one side drove out at the other after their owner had alighted.  This second gate was at the west end of the court, not far from the coach-house.  To reach their work Malipieri and Masin had to go down the grand staircase and pass the porter’s lodge.  Masin wore the rough clothes of a working mason and Malipieri appeared in overalls and a heavy canvas jacket.  Very soon the garments of both were so effectually stained with mud, green mould and water that the two men could hardly have been distinguished from ordinary day labourers, even in broad daylight.