A replacement is hard to find amid the Great Depression, but his ability to speak some Italian wins him a post with the Spartacus Machine Tool Company in Wolverhampton.

Marlow signs on as Spartacus's representative in Italy, secretly deciding that he will quit the job as soon as possible to go back to England and get married.

On arrival in Milan, Marlow discovers there is a huge backlog at his office, and that his personal assistant Bellinetti is highly inefficient.

A lot of his time is diverted by the Italian authorities, to whom he has to report on a regular basis and who eventually claim that they have misplaced his passport so he is unable to leave the country.

Driven out of his job because of his lukewarm response to the Fascist government, Beronelli has become delusional, believing that he has discovered the secret of perpetual motion; his daughter recognises Zaleshoff and Marlow as fugitives, but spares them in return for their humouring her father.