Part 81 (2/2)

”No, alone. I wish to speak to you alone.”

Calabressa looked around. The only place of shelter he saw was a rather shabby restaurant, chiefly used as a supper-room, and at this moment having the appearance of not being yet woke up. Reitzei was in a compliant mood. He suffered himself to be conducted into this place, to the astonishment of one or two unwashed-looking waiters, who were seated and reading the previous evening's papers. Calabressa and Reitzei sat down at one of the small tables; the former ordered some coffee, the latter a bottle of soda-water.

By this time Calabressa had collected himself for the part he was about to play.

”Well, my friend,” said he, cheerfully, ”what news? When is Europe to hear the fate of the Cardinal?”

”I don't know; I know very little about it,” said Reitzei, glancing at him rather suspiciously.

”It is a terrible business,” said Calabressa, reflectively, ”a decree of the Council. You would think that one so powerful, so well protected, would be able to escape, would you not? But he himself knows better. He knows he is as powerless as you might be, for example, or myself.”

”Oh, as for that,” said Reitzei, boldly, ”he knows he has deserved it: what more? He has had his little fling, now comes the settlement of the score.”

”And I hear that our friend Brand is to be the instrument of justice: how strange! He has not been so long with us.”

”That is Mr. Lind's affair: it has nothing to do with me,” said Reitzei, shortly.

”Well,” said Calabressa, toying with his coffee-cup. ”I hope I shall never be tempted to do anything that might lead the Council to condemn me. Fancy such a life; every moment expecting some one to step up behind you with a knife or a pistol, and the end sure! I would take Provana's plan. The poor devil; as soon as he heard he had been condemned he could not bear living. He never thought of escape: a few big stones in the pockets of his coat, and over he slips into the Arno. And Mesentskoff: you remember him? His only notion of escape was to give himself up to the police--twenty-five years in the mines. I think Provana's plan was better.”

Reitzei became a little uneasy, or perhaps only impatient.

”Well, Calabressa,” he said, ”one must be getting along to one's affairs--”

”Oh yes, yes, truly,” Calabressa said. ”I only wished to know a little more about the Cardinal. You see he cannot give himself up like Mesentskoff, though he might confess to a hundred worse things than the Russian ever did. Provana--well, you know the Society has always been inexorable with regard to its own officers: and rightly, too, Reitzei, is it not so? If one finds malversation of justice among those in a high grade, should not the punishment be exemplary? The higher the power, the higher the responsibility. You, for example, are much too shrewd a man to risk your life by taking any advantage of your position as one of the officers--”

”I don't understand you, Calabressa,” the other said, somewhat hotly.

”I only meant to say,” Calabressa observed, carelessly, ”that the punishment for malversation of justice on the part of an officer is so terrible, so swift, and so sure, that no one but a madman would think of running the risk--”

”Yes, but what has that to do with me?” Reitzei said, angrily.

”Nothing, my dear friend, nothing,” said Calabressa, soothingly. ”But now, about this selection of Mr. Brand--”

Reitzei turned rather pale for a second; but said instantly, and with apparent anger,

”I tell you that is none of my business. That is Mr. Lind's business.

What have I to do with it?”

”Do not be so impatient, my friend,” said Calabressa, looking at his coffee. ”We will say that, as usual, there was a ballot. All quite fair.

No man wishes to avoid his duty. It is the simplest thing in the world to mark one of your pieces of paper with a red mark: whoever receives the marked paper undertakes the commission. All is quite fair, I say.

Only you know, I dare say, the common, the pitiful trick of the conjurer who throws a pack of cards on the table, backs up. You take one, look at it privately, return it, and the cards are shuffled. Without lifting the cards at all he tells you that the one you selected was the eight of diamonds: why? It is no miracle: all the cards are eight of diamonds; though you, you poor innocent, do not know that. It is a wretched trick,” added Calabressa, coolly.

Reitzei drank off the remainder of his soda-water at a gulp. He stared at Calabressa in silence, afraid to speak.

”My dear friend Reitzei,” said Calabressa, at length raising his eyes and fixing them on his companion, ”you could not be so insane as to play any trick like that?--having four pieces of paper, for example, all marked red, the marks under the paper? You would not enter into any such conspiracy, for you know, friend Reitzei, that the punishment is--death!”

The man had turned a ghastly gray-green color. He was apparently choking with thirst, though he had just finished the soda-water. He could not speak.

<script>