"If anything of importance happens, can you communicate with Donna Sabina?" he asked.

"I can write to her," Sassi answered. "I suppose she would receive me if I went to the house."

"That would be better."

"Excuse me," said the old man, before opening the door to let his visitor out, "am I right in supposing that the work the Baron wishes done is connected with the foundations?"

"Yes."

"At the north-west corner within the courtyard?"

"Yes," answered Malipieri, looking at him attentively. "Do you happen to know anything about the condition of that part of the palace?"

"Most people," Sassi replied, "have now forgotten that a good deal of work was done there long ago, under Pope Gregory Sixteenth."

"Indeed? I did not know that. What was the result?"

"The workmen came across the 'lost water.' It rose suddenly one day and one of them was drowned. I believe his body was never recovered.

Everything was filled in again after that. For my own part I do not think the building is in any danger."

"Perhaps not," said Malipieri, suddenly looking bored. "I only carry out the Senator's wishes," he added, as if with an afterthought. "It is my business to find out whether there is danger or not."

He took his leave and went away, convinced that the old agent knew about other things besides Sabina's friendless condition, but unwilling to question him just then. The information Sassi had volunteered was interesting but not useful. Malipieri thought he himself knew well enough where the "lost water" was, under the Palazzo Conti.

It was not far from Sassi's house to the palace, but he walked very slowly through the narrow streets, and stopped more than once, deliberately looking back, as if he were trying to keep the exact direction of some point in his mind, and he seemed interested in the gutters, and in the walls, at their base, just above the pavement. At the corner of the Vicolo dei Soldati he saw a little marble tablet let into the masonry and yellow with age. He stopped a moment and read the inscription. Then he turned away with a look of annoyance, for it set forth that "by order of the most Eminent Vicar all persons were warned not to empty garbage there, on pain of a fine." It was a forgotten document of the old papal administration, as he could have told without reading it if he had known Rome better. From the corner he counted his paces and then stopped again and examined the wall and the pavement minutely.

There was nothing to be seen at all different from the pavement and the wall for many yards further on and further back, and Malipieri apparently abandoned the search, for he now walked on quickly till he reached the entrance of the palace, on the other side, and went in.

From the low door of the wine shop, Toto, the mason, had seen him, and stood watching him till he was out of sight.

"He does not know where it is," Toto said, sitting down again opposite Gigi.

"Engineers know everything," retorted the carpenter.

"If this one knew anything, he would not have stood there looking at the stones. I do not suppose the municipality is going to put up a monument to my grandfather, whom may the Lord preserve in glory!"

At this Gigi laughed, for he knew that Toto's grandfather had been drowned in the "lost water" somewhere deep down under that spot, and had never been found. The two men drank in silence. After a long time Toto spoke again.

"A woman," he said, with a shrug of the shoulders.

"A woman drowned him?" asked Gigi. "How could a woman do it?"

"A man did it. But it was for jealousy of a woman."

"The man was a mason, I suppose," suggested Gigi.

"Of course. He was working with the others in the morning, and he knew where they would be after dinner. He did not come back with them, and half an hour after they had gone down the water came. How many times have I told you that?"

"It is always a new tale," answered Gigi. "It gives me pleasure to hear it. Your father was a young man then, was he not?"

"Eighteen." Toto lighted his pipe.

"And the man who did it died soon afterwards?" Gigi said.

"Of course," said Toto. "What else could my father do? He killed him.

It was the least he could have done. My father is also in Paradise."

"Requiescat!" ejaculated the carpenter devoutly.

"Amen," answered Toto. "He killed him with a mattock."

"It was well done," observed Gigi with satisfaction. "I suppose," he continued after a pause, "that if anybody went down there now, you could let in the water."

"Why should I? I do not care what they do. If they send for me, I may serve them. If they think they can do without me, let them try. I do not care a cabbage!"

"Perhaps not," Gigi answered thoughtfully. "But it must be a fine satisfaction to know that you can drown them all, like rats in a hole."

"Yes," said Toto, "it is a fine satisfaction."

"And even to know that you can make the water come before they begin, so that they can never do anything without you."

"That too," assented the mason.

"They would pay you a great deal to help them, if they could not pump the water out. There is no one else in Rome who knows how to turn it off."

Gigi made the remark tentatively, but Toto did not answer.

"You will need some one to help you," suggested the carpenter in an insinuating tone.

"I can do it alone."

"It is somewhere in the cellars of number thirteen, is it not?" asked Gigi.

He would have given all he had to know what Toto knew, and the bargain would have been a very profitable one, no doubt. But though the mason was his closest friend there were secrets of the trade which Toto would not reveal to him.

"The numbers in the street were all changed ten years ago," Toto answered.

He rose from his seat by the grimy table, and Gigi followed his example with a sigh of disappointment. They were moderate men, and hardly ever drank more than their litre of their wine. Toto smelt of mortar and his fustian clothes and hairy arms were generally splashed with it. Gigi smelt of glue and sawdust, and there were plentiful marks of his calling on his shiny old cloth trousers and his coarse linen shirt. Toto's face was square, stony and impenetrable; Gigi's was sharp as a bill and alive with curiosity. Gigi wore a square paper cap; Toto wore a battered felt hat of no shape at all. On Sundays and holidays they both shaved and turned out in immaculate white shirts, well brushed broadcloth and decent hats, recognizable to each other but not to their employers.

Malipieri was accosted by a stranger at the gate of the palace. The porter, faithfully obedient to his orders, was standing inside the open postern, completely blocking it with his bulk, and when Malipieri came up the visitor was still parleying with him.

"This gentleman is asking for you, sir," said the old man.

The individual bowed politely and stepped back a little. He had a singularly worthy appearance, Malipieri thought, and he would have inspired confidence if employed in a bank; his thick grey hair was parted in the middle, and at first sight Malipieri felt perfectly sure that it was parted down the back. His brown eyes were very wide open, and steady, his slightly grizzled moustache was neither twisted straight up at the ends in the imperial German manner, nor straight out like a cat's whiskers, nor waxed to fine points in the old French fashion. It grew naturally and was rather short, but it hid his mouth almost completely. The man was extremely well dressed in half- mourning, wore dark grey gloves and carried a plain black stick. He spoke quietly and Malipieri thought he recognized the Genoese accent.

"Signor Marino Malipieri?"

"Yes," answered the architect, in a tone that asked the visitor's name in return.