CHAPTER XXVIIIOnce more Fawley crossed that huge spacious apartment, at the far end of which Berati sat enthroned behind his low desk, a grim and motionless figure. The chair on his left-hand side was vacant. There was no sign anywhere of Patoni.
“I ought to apologise for my sudden return to Rome, perhaps,” Fawley ventured. “Events marched quicker than I had anticipated. Except for a brief stay at Monte Carlo, I have come here directly from Paris.”
Berati leaned slightly forward. His eyes were like slits of coal-black fire, his lower lip was dragged down, his face resembled a sculptor’s effort to reproduce the human sneer.
“You have been paying quite a round of visits, I understand,” he remarked icily. “London—I scarcely thought that London and Downing Street were places with which we h
