The Chief stood upright and looked at the Superintendent, who looked at
him, and both shook their heads. Then they asked what the visiting
doctor had said, and what directions he had given about Marcello's
treatment.

"I am sure it is he," said the Chief of Police when they were closeted
in the Superintendent's office, five minutes later. "I have studied his
photograph every day for nearly three months. Look at it."

He produced a good-sized photograph of Marcello which had been taken
about a year earlier, but was the most recent. The Superintendent
looked at it critically, and said it was not much like the patient. The
official objected that a man who was half dead of fever and had lain
starving for weeks, heaven only knew where, could hardly be quite
himself in appearance. The Superintendent pointed out that this was
precisely the difficulty; the photograph was not like the sick man. But
the Chief politely insisted that it was. They differed altogether on
this point, but quarrelled over it in the most urbane manner possible.

The Superintendent suggested that it would be easy to identify Marcello
Consalvi, by bringing people who knew him to his bedside, servants and
others. The official answered that he should prefer to be sure of
everything before calling in any one else. The patient had evidently
lost his memory by some accident, and if he could not recall his own
name it was not likely that he could recognise a face. Servants would
swear that it was he, or not he, just as their interest suggested. Most
of the people of his own class who knew him were out of town at the
present season; and besides, the upper classes were not, in the Chief's
opinion, a whit more intelligent or trustworthy than those that served