The Fourth Plague Read Online Free Page A

know, although I have not told you, that we are inquiring into a certain organization.”
    He laid his thin white hand upon the other’s shoulder, and stopped, peering down into the boy’s face with keen attention.
    â€œAntonio,” he said slowly, “that investigation is to be directed toward your father and his actions.”
    The other nodded. “I know,” he said simply.
    â€œI am glad you know,” said Tillizini, with a little sigh of relief. “It has rather worried me. I wanted to tell you some time ago that such an inquiry was inevitable, but I did not think I would be doing my duty to the State if I gave that information.”
    Antonio smiled a little sadly.
    â€œIt does not matter, Signor,” he said; “as a matter of fact, my father knows, and is expecting you.”
    Tillizini nodded.
    â€œThat I expected too,” he said, “or rather let me be frank—I hoped he would be; for a policeman expected is a policeman defeated,” he smiled.
    They walked a little way in silence, then—
    â€œAre you satisfied in your mind that my father is concerned in all these outrages?” asked Antonio.
    The old man looked at him sharply.
    â€œAre you not also?” he asked.
    The heir of the Festinis made no reply. As if by mutual consent they changed the subject and spoke of other matters.
    The old man was awaiting the arrival of the police officers; that much Antonio guessed.
    They spoke of the college at Florence and of mutual friends. Then, by easy stages, the professor approached his favourite subject—the subject of his life-work.
    â€œIt is a thousand pities, is it not?” he said, “that, having got so far, the good God will not give me another hundred years of life?”
    He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œAt the end of which time I should require another hundred,” he said philosophically. “It is as well, perhaps, that we cannot have our desires. “It would have satisfied me,” he continued, “had I a son to carry on my work. Here again I am denied. I have not, I admit,” he said, with that naiveté which was his charm, “even in my life provided myself with a wife. That was an oversight for which I am now being punished.”
    He stopped as a tall officer in the uniform of the carbineers came swinging across the Piazza del Campo, and Antonio Festini instinctively stepped away from his master’s side.
    The two spoke together, and by and by, with a little nod of farewell and a fleeting shadow of pity in his eyes, Tillizini accompanied the tall officer in the direction of the Palazzo Festini.
    Antonio watched him until he was out of sight. Then he resumed his aimless pacing up and down the Piazza, his hands behind his back, his head sunk forward on his breast.
    Tillizini accompanied the tall officer to the Festini Palace. He pulled the rusty bell that hung by the side of the great door, and was admitted.
    He was conducted with all the ceremony which his obvious rank demanded—for was not there an officer of carbineers accompanying him, and did not that officer treat him with great deference?—to the big salon of the Festinis.
    It was an apartment bleak and bare. The ancient splendours of the painted ceiling were dim and dingy, the marble flagged floor was broken in places, and no attempt had been made to repair it. The few chairs, and the French table which had been pushed against the wall, seemed lost in that wilderness of chilly marble.
    In a few moments Count Festini came in. He was still dressed in his velvet coat and waistcoat, and the riding breeches and boots which he and his sons invariably wore, for they were great horsemen, and had but that one taste in common.
    He favoured Tillizini with a bow, which the professor returned.
    â€œI am at your Excellency’s disposition,” he said formally, and waited.
    â€œCount Festini,” said Tillizini, “I have come upon an