Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/114

102 "The evidence certainly points to that," I replied.

"You don't happen to be aware of any one — any foreigner, I mean — who was, or might be, his enemy?"

I responded in the negative.

"Ah," he went on, "these foreigners are always fighting among themselves and using knives. I did ten years' service in Edinburgh and made lots of arrests for stabbing affrays. Italians, like Greeks, are a dangerous lot when their blood is up." Then he added: "Personally, it seems to me that the murdered man was enticed from London to that spot and coolly done away with — from some motive of revenge, most probably."

"Most probably," I said. "A vendetta, perhaps. I live in Italy, and therefore know the Italians well," I added.

I had given him my card, and told him with whom I was staying.

"Where were you yesterday, sir?" he inquired presently.

"I was shooting — on the other side of the Nithsdale," I answered, and then went on to explain my movements, without, however, mentioning my visit to Rannoch.

"And although you know" the murdered man so intimately, you have no suspicion of any one in this district who was acquainted with him?"

"I know no one who knew him. When he left my service he had never been in England."

"You say he was engaged in service in London?"

"Yes, at a restaurant in Oxford Street, I believe.