'The caretaker has opened the villa for us--we have the rooms on the ground floor at our disposal--most convenient.

Come and undress.' Andrea followed him.

While he undressed, the two surgeons opened their surgical cases and displayed the array of glittering steel instruments within.

One of them was a youngish man, pale, bald, and with feminine hands and a hard mouth, with a continual and visible contraction of the lower jaw, which was extraordinarily developed.

The other was a thickset man of mature years with a freckled face, bushy red beard and the neck of an ox.