“No, I feel like walking.”

“So long as you don’t have to pay for it afterwards.”

Aaron gathered that she was not well. Yet she did not look ill—unless it were nerves. She had that peculiar heavy remote quality of pre– occupation and neurosis.

The streets of Florence were very full this Sunday evening, almost impassable, crowded particularly with gangs of grey–green soldiers. The three made their way brokenly, and with difficulty. The Italian was in a constant state of returning salutes. The grey–green, sturdy, unsoldierly soldiers looked at the woman as she passed.

“I am sure you had better take a carriage,” said Manfredi.

“No—I don’t mind it.”

“Do you feel at home in Florence?” Aaron asked her.

“Yes—as much as anywhere. Oh, yes—quite at home.”

“Do you like it as well as anywhere?” he asked.

“Yes—for a time. Paris for the most part.”

“Never America?”

“No, never America. I came when I was quite a little girl to Europe— Madrid—Constantinople—Paris. I hardly knew America at all.”

Aaron remembered that Francis had told him, the Marchesa’s father had been ambassador to Paris.

“So you you feel you have no country of your own?”

“I have Italy. I am Italian now, you know.”

Aaron wondered why she spoke so muted, so numbed. Manfredi seemed really attached to her—and she to him. They were so simple with one another.

They came towards the bridge where they should part.

“Won’t you come and have a cocktail?” she said.

“Now?” said Aaron.

“Yes. This is the right time for a cocktail. What time is it, Manfredi?”

“Half past six. Do come and have one with us,” said the Italian. “We always take one about this time.”

Aaron continued with them over the bridge. They had the first floor of an old palazzo opposite, a little way up the hill. A man–servant opened the door.

“If only it will be warm,” she said. “The apartment is almost impossible to keep warm. We will sit in the little room.”

Aaron found himself in a quite warm room with shaded lights and a mixture of old Italian stiffness and deep soft modern comfort. The Marchesa went away to take off her wraps, and the Marchese chatted with Aaron. The little officer was amiable and kind, and it was evident he liked his guest.

“Would you like to see the room where we have music?” he said. “It is a fine room for the purpose—we used before the war to have music every Saturday morning, from ten to twelve: and all friends might come. Usually we had fifteen or twenty people. Now we are starting again. I myself enjoy it so much. I am afraid my wife isn’t so enthusiastic as she used to be. I wish something would rouse her up, you know. The war seemed to take her life away. Here in Florence are so many amateurs. Very good indeed. We can have very good chamber–music indeed. I hope it will cheer her up and make her quite herself again. I was away for such long periods, at the front.—And it was not good for her to be alone.—I am hoping now all will be better.”

“Ah,” said Holmes, “I think that what you have been good enough to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce all that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this system of imprisonment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler.”

“That was it, sir.”

“But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should be, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your interests were the same as his.”

“Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman,” said Mrs. Toller serenely.

“And in this way he managed that your good man should have no want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment when your master had gone out.”

“You have it, sir, just as it happened.”

“I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller,” said Holmes, “for you have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think. Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a questionable one.”

And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of his devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who probably know so much of Rucastle’s past life that he finds it difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their flight, and he is now the holder of a government appointment in the island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.