They rang repeatedly. Roma stood in the middle of the floor, listening
and holding her breath.
"Deuce take it!" said a voice outside. "Why doesn't the woman open the
door if she doesn't want to get herself into trouble? She's at home, at
all events."
"So is he, if I know anything," said a second voice. "He drove here
anyway--not a doubt about that."
"Let's see the porter--he'll have another key."
"The old fool is out at the illuminations. But listen...." (the door
rattled as if some one was shaking it). "This door is fastened on the
inside."
There was a chuckling laugh, and then, "All right, boys! Down with it!"
A moment afterwards the door was broken open and four Carabineers were
in the dining-room. Roma awaited their irruption without a word. She
continued to stand in the middle of the sitting-room looking straight
before her.
"Holy saints, what's this?" cried the voice she had heard first, and she
knew that the Carabineers were bending over the body on the couch.
"His Excellency!"
"Lord save us!"
Roma's head was dizzy, and something more was said which she did not
follow. At the next moment the Carabineers had entered the sitting-room;
she was standing face to face with them, and they were questioning her.
"The Honourable Rossi is here, isn't he?"
"No," she answered in a timid voice.
"But he has been here, hasn't he?"
"No," she answered more boldly.
"Do you mean to say that the Honourable Rossi has not been here
to-night?"
"I do," she said, with exaggerated emphasis.
The marshal of the Carabineers, who had been speaking, looked
attentively at her for a moment, and then he called on his men to search
the rooms.
"What's this?" said the marshal, taking up a sealed letter from the
bureau and reading the superscription: "L'on, Davide Rossi, Carceri
Giudiziarie, di Milano."
"That's a letter I wrote to my husband and haven't yet posted," said
Roma.
"But what's this?" cried a voice from the dining-room. "Presented to the
Honourable David Rossi by the Italian colony in Zürich."
Roma sank into a seat. It was the revolver. She had forgotten it.
"That's all right," said the marshal, with the same chuckle as before.
Dizzy and almost blind in her terror, Roma struggled to her feet. "The
revolver belongs to me," she said. "Mr. Rossi left it in my keeping
when he went away two months ago, and since that time he has never
touched it."