“Very well,” Corbario answered.  “Let us suppose that my stepson had time to get away.  In that case he can be found, alive or dead.  Italy is not China, nor Siberia, and I can place unlimited funds at your disposal.  Find him for me; that is all I ask.”

“We shall find him, never fear!” answered the Chief of Police with a confidence he did not feel.

“We shall find him!” echoed the three detectives in chorus.

Ercole watched the proceedings and listened to what was said, for he considered it his duty to attend on such an occasion, his dog at his heels, his gun slung over his shoulder.  He listened and looked from one to the other with his deep eyes and inscrutable parchment face, shrivelled by the malarious fever.  But he said nothing.  The Chief of Police turned to him at last.

“Now what do you think about it?” asked the official.  “You know the country.  Had there been any suspicious characters about, fellows who could have carried off the boy?”

“Such people would ask a ransom,” answered Ercole.  “You would soon hear from them.  But I saw no one.  There have been no brigands about Rome for more than twenty years.  Do you dream that you are in Sicily?  Praise be to Heaven, this is the Roman Campagna; we are Christians and we live under King Victor!  Where are the brigands?  They have melted.  Or else they are making straw hats in the galleys.  Do I know where they are?  They are not here.  That is enough.”

“Quite right, my friend,” answered the Chief of Police.  “There are no brigands.  But I am sorry to say that there are thieves in the Campagna, as there are near every great city.”

Ercole shrugged his angular shoulders contemptuously.

“Thieves would not carry a man away,” he answered.  “You know that, you who are of the profession, as they say.  Such ruffians would have knocked the young gentleman on the head to keep him quiet, and would have made off.  And besides, we should have found their tracks in the sand, and Nino would have smelt them.”

Nino pricked up one ragged ear at the sound of his name.

“He does not look very intelligent,” observed the official.  “A clever dog might have been used to track the boy.”

“How?” inquired Ercole with scorn.  “The footsteps of the young gentleman were everywhere, with those of all the family, who were always coming and going about here.  How could he track them, or any of us?  But he would have smelt a stranger, even if it had rained.  I know this dog.  He is the head dog on the Roman shore.  There is no other dog like him.”

“I daresay not,” assented the Chief of Police, looking at Nino.  “In fact, he is not like any animal I ever saw.”

The detectives laughed at this.

“There is no other,” said Ercole without a smile.  “He is the only son of a widowed mother.  I am his family, and he is my family, and we live in good understanding in this desert.  If there were no fever we should be like the saints in paradise—­eating our corn meal together.  And I will tell you another thing.  If the young gentleman had been wounded anywhere near here, Nino would have found the blood even after three days.  As for a dead man, he would make a point for him and howl half a mile off, unless the wind was the wrong way.”