Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/51



was two weeks later that, after the docking of a Navigazione Generale Italiana steamer at Palermo, an old woman wearing amber-coloured spectacles stepped solemnly ashore.

As this old woman had taken the pains to await the departure of all other passengers, and as she carried only a hand-bag of the same faded hue as her attire, her visit to the Dogana was a brief one. Then, for all her humped shoulders and a somewhat sidling method of progression suggestive of sciatic rheumatism, she proceeded with a melancholy briskness along the Via del Molo. It was not until she had entered the Piazza Ucciardone that she encountered an idle vettura.

After looking peevishly about her in all directions, she signalled to the driver. The dilapidated vehicle swung about and drew up beside her with a mingled clatter of wheels and hooves. The long arm in faded black thrust up to the cabman a scratch-pad on which a city address was written.

The small and swarthy man of the reins, having scrutinised this address, blithely nodded his understanding. Then he showed his teeth in a still broader grin. For his Saracenic black eye had swept the dowdy figure, noting the well-worn metal ear-trumpet hanging from one arm by a frayed black cord, the