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seemed as if years had passed.
    What was it that Don Emilio had once called his uncle? A shylock. He laughed to himself. He wondered what Don Emilio thought of him now.
    The man who lay dead behind him represented merely the principal payment on his debt. The two to come would be the interest, accumulated interest for twelve years. Three lives for one. That should mean payment in any man’s book.
    He remembered how it was the night Don Emilio had presented his note.

4
    The courtyard of the Castle Cardinali had been empty as Cesare pulled the car to a stop in front of the house. He turned off the motor as the door opened and an old man peeked out. When he saw Cesare his face broke into a wide happy smile. He hurried creakingly down the steps.
    “Don Cesare, Don Cesare!” he cried in an ancient voice.
    Cesare turned to him with a smile. “Gio!” he exclaimed.
    The old man bobbed up and down before him. “You should have let us know you were coming, Don Cesare,” he said. “We would have had the house ready for you.”
    Cesare smiled wryly. “It is an unexpected visit, Gio. I can only remain overnight. Tomorrow I must be on my way home.”
    A frown crossed the old man’s face. “Home, Don Cesare? This is home.”
    Cesare started up the steps toward the house. “Yes,” he said gently. “I keep forgetting. But now I live in America.”
    Gio pulled the valise from the back seat of the car and hurried after Cesare. “What happened in the race, Don Cesare? Did you win?”
    Cesare shook his head. “No, Gio. My generator burned out. I had to stop. That is how I had time to come here.”
    He crossed the big chilly entrance hall and came to a stop under the portrait of his father. For a moment he stared up at the thin patrician face that looked down at him from the portrait. The war had broken him. Spiritually and physically. He had spoken out against the Germans and Il Duce ordered the lands confiscated. The old man had died soon after.
    “I am sorry about your car, Don Cesare.” Gio’s voice came from behind him.
    “The car, oh, yes.” Cesare turned from the portrait and walked to the library. He hadn’t been thinking about the car, not even about his father. He had just been realizing how changed it all was.
    He had come back after the war and everything was gone. His uncle had come to own everything then. The bank, the lands. Everything except the castle and the title. His uncle had never forgiven his brother for legitimizing Cesare, thus depriving him of succession to the title.
    No word was ever spoken aloud about it but everyone knew how the miserly little man who owned the exchange bank felt. Cesare remembered bitterly how he had gone to see his uncle.
    “Signor Raimondi,” he had said arrogantly, “I have been told that my father had some monies deposited with you.”
    Raimondi had peered at him shrewdly across the dirty black desk. “You have heard incorrectly, my nephew,” he had said in his thin reedy voice. “It is, in truth, the other way round. The late Count, my good brother, unfortunately died owing me vast sums. I have here in my desk mortgages on the castle and all its lands.”
    It had been the truth. Everything was proper and in order. Leave it to Raimondi Cardinali to do that. For three years after the war Cesare had to live under the old man’s thumb. Dependent upon him for his very existence, he came to hate him. He even had to come to his office to get money for carfare to his beloved fencing matches.
    It was one such afternoon that Cesare had first met Emilio Matteo. He had been in his uncle’s office in the bank when there was a great commotion outside. He turned and looked out the glass-framed door.
    A handsomely dressed gray-haired man was walking toward it. There was much bowing and scraping as he walked along. “Who is that?” Cesare asked.
    “Emilio Matteo,” Raimondi had answered, already getting to his feet in greeting.
    Cesare raised an inquiring eyebrow. He had never