"
Fermate!" cried the Dean, turning towards the cab, which was trailing
away, and the man, who had been scandalously overpaid, came back with
alacrity, while the Dean stepped in to read the letter.
When he came out again he was very pale and in a great haste. He bade
the man replace the bag and drive him at once to the railway-station.
On the way thither he murmured to himself, "Horrible!--horrible!"--and
both the letter and a newspaper which had been enclosed in it shook in
his hands.
He had half an hour to wait before the advent of the evening train for
Venice, and he spent it in a quiet corner poring over the newspaper. And
not that newspaper only, for he presently became aware that all the
small, ill-printed sheets offered him by an old newsvender in the
station were full of the same news, and some with later detail--nay,
that the people walking up and down in the station were eagerly talking
of it.
An Englishman had been assassinated in Venice. It seemed that a body had
been discovered early on the preceding morning floating in one of the
small canals connecting the Fondamente Nuove with the Grand Canal.
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