第99章

While continuing to smoke his cigar, he raked the fire with the tongs, taking up one small piece of charred wood after another between their points.By the quivering of his fingers, the only sign of his nervous sensitiveness which he was unable entirely to keep down, I could observe that my presence was then, as it always was, disagreeable to him.Nevertheless he talked on with his habitual courtesy, in his low voice, almost without tone or accent, as though he had trained himself to talk thus.His eyes were fixed on the flame, and his face, which I saw in profile, wore the expression of infinite weariness that I knew well, in indescribable stillness and sadness, with long deep lines, and the mouth was contracted as though by some bitter thought ever present.

Suddenly, I looked straight at that detested profile, concentrating all the attention I had in me upon it, and, passing from one subject to another without transition, I said:

"I paid a very interesting visit this morning.""In that you are agreeably distinguished from me," was his reply, made in a tone of utter indifference, "for I wasted my morning in putting my correspondence in order.""Yes," I continued, "very interesting.I passed two hours with M.

Massol."

I had reckoned a good deal on the effect of this name, which must have instantly recalled the inquiry into the mystery of the Imperial Hotel to his memory.The muscles of his face did not move.He laid down the tongs, leaned back in his chair, and said in an absent manner:

"The former Judge of Instruction? What is he doing now?"Was it possible that he really did not know where the man, whom, if he were guilty, he ought to have dreaded most of all men, was then living? How was I to know whether this indifference was feigned?

The trap I had set appeared to me all at once a childish notion.

Admitting that my stepfather's pulses were even now throbbing with fever, and that he was saying to himself with dread: "What is he coming to? What does he mean?" why, this was a reason why he should conceal his emotion all the more carefully.No matter.Ihad begun; I was bound to go on, and to hit hard.

"M.Massol is Counsellor to the Court," I replied, and I added--although this was not true--"I see him often.We were talking this morning of criminals who have escaped punishment.Only fancy his being convinced that Troppman had an accomplice.He founds his belief on the details of the crime, which presuppose two men, he says.If this be true it must be admitted that 'Messieurs les assassins' have a kind of honor of their own, however odd that may appear, since the child-killing monster let his own head be cut off without denouncing the other.Nevertheless, the accomplice must have put some bad time over him, after the discovery of the bodies and the arrest of his comrade.I, for my part, would not trust to that honor, and if the humor took me to commit a crime, I should do it by myself.Would you?" I asked jestingly.

These two little words meant nothing, were merely an insignificant jest, if the man to whom I put my odd question was innocent.But, if he were guilty, those two little words were enough to freeze the marrow in his bones.He surrounded himself with smoke while listening to me, his eye-lids half veiled his eyes; I could no longer see his left hand, which hung over the far side of his chair, and he had put the right into the pocket of his morning-coat.There was a short pause before he answered me--very short--but the interval, perhaps a minute, that divided his reply from my question, was a burning one for me.But what of this? It was not his way to speak in a hurry; and besides, my question had nothing interesting in it if he were not guilty, and if he were, would he not have to calculate the bearing of the phrase which he was about to utter with the quickness of thought? He closed his eyes completely--his constant habit--and said, in the unconcerned tone of a man who is talking generalities: