"
"It is under number thirteen, Master Judas. Speak!"
"It was the little fair girl of Casa Conti who was caught with the
engineer in the vaults."
Even Toto was surprised, and opened his eyes and his mouth at the same
time.
"The little Princess Sabina?" he asked in a low voice.
Gigi shrugged his shoulders with a pitying air and grinned.
"I told you that you knew nothing," he observed in triumph. "They were
together all night, and she slept in his room, and the Senator's wife
came to get her in the morning. The engineer took the porter off to
the cellars before they came down, so that he should not see her pass;
but he forgot me, the old carpenter of the house, and I opened the
postern for the two ladies to go out. The little Princess's skirt had
been torn. I saw the pins with these eyes. It was also spotted with
mud which had been brushed off. But thanks be to heaven I have still
my sight. I see, and am not blind."
"Are you sure it was she?" asked Toto, forgetting to curse anybody.
"I saw her as I see you. Have I not seen her grow up, since she used
to be wheeled about in a baby carriage in Piazza Navona, like a flower
in a basket? Her nurse made love with the 'woodpecker' who was always
on duty there."
The Romans call the municipal watchmen "woodpeckers," because they
wear little pointed cocked hats with a bunch of feathers.
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