“There you ask me a pretty question.  My belief is that she was either one of those Nihilist madwomen, or else the devil himself in a new shape.  At any rate, she had some good cognac.”

“I should like some coffee now, Signor Calabressa; and you?”

“I would not refuse it.”

Indeed, during all this journey to Naples, Calabressa and his companion talked much more of the commonplace incidents and wants of travel than of the graver matters that lay before them.  Calabressa was especially resolute in doing so.  He did not like to look ahead.  He kept reminding himself that he was simply the agent of the Council; he was carrying out their behests; the consequences were for others to deal with.  He had fulfilled his commission; he had procured sufficient proof of the suspected conspiracy; if evil-doers were to be punished, was he responsible? Fiat justitia! he kept repeating to himself.  He was answerable to the Council alone.  He had done his duty.

But from time to time—­and especially when they were travelling at night, and he was awake—­a haunting dread possessed him.  How should he appear before these two women in Naples?  His old friend Natalie Berezolyi had been grievously wronged; she had suffered through long years; but a wife forgets much when her husband is about to die.  And a daughter?  Lind had been an affectionate father enough to this girl; these two had been companions all her lifetime; recent incidents would surely be forgotten in her terror over the fact that it was her own appeal to the Council that had wrought her father’s death.  And then he, Calabressa, what could he say?  It was through him she had invoked these unknown powers; it was his counsel that had taken her to Naples; and he was the immediate instrument that would produce this tragic end.

He would not think of it.  At the various places where they stopped he worried about food and drink, and angrily haggled about hotel-bills:  he read innumerable stupid little newspapers from morning till night; he smoked Reitzei nearly blind.  At last they reached Naples.

Within an hour after their arrival Calabressa, alone, was in Tommaso’s wine-vaults talking to the ghoul-like occupant.  A bell rung, faint and muffled, in the distance; he passed to the back of the vaults, and lit a candle that Tommaso handed him; then he followed what seemed, from the rumble overhead, some kind of subterranean corridor.  But at the end of this long sub-way he began to ascend; then he reached some steps; finally, he was on an ordinary staircase, with daylight around him, and above him a landing with two doors, both shut.

Opening one of these doors, after having knocked thrice, he entered a large, bare chamber which was occupied by three men, all seated at a table which was covered with papers.  One of them, Von Zoesch, rose.

“That is good; that is very well settled,” he said to the other two.  “It is a good piece of work.  Now here is this English business, and the report of our wily friend, Calabressa.  What is it, Calabressa?  We had your telegram; we have sent for Lind and Beratinsky; what more?”