“Why hurry? We’ve plenty of time before us. I’m not getting out till Rome. Lafcadio, my friend, it happens that a crime occasionally escapes the detectives. I’ll explain you why it is that we are more clever than they—it’s because our lives are at stake. Where the police fail, we succeed. Damn it, Lafcadio, you’ve made your choice; the thing’s done and it’s impossible now for you to escape. I should much prefer you to be obedient, because I should really be extremely grieved to hand an old friend like you over to the police. But what’s to be done? For the future you are in their power—or ours.”
“If you hand me over, you hand yourself over at the same time.”
“I hoped we were speaking seriously. Try and take this in, Lafcadio. The police collar people who kick up a row; but in Italy they’re glad to come to terms with ‘the slim.’ ‘Come to terms’—yes, I think that’s the right expression. I work a bit for the police myself. I’ve a way with me. I help to keep order. I don’t act on my own—I cause others to act.
“Come, come, Cadio, stop champing at the bit. There’s nothing very dreadful about my law. You exaggerate these things; so ingenuous—so impulsive! Do you think it wasn’t out of obedience and just because I willed it, that you picked up Mademoiselle Venitequa’s sleeve-link off your plate at dinner? Ah! how thoughtless—how idyllic an action! My poor Lafcadio, how you cursed yourself for that little action, eh? The bloody nuisance is that I wasn’t the only one to see it. Pooh! Don’t take on so; the waiter and the widow and the little girl are all in it too. Charming people! It lies entirely with you to have them for your friends. Lafcadio, my friend, be sensible. Do you give in?”
Out of excessive embarrassment perhaps, Lafcadio had taken up the line of not speaking. He sat stiff—his lips set, his eyes staring straight in front of him.
Protos went on, with a shrug of his shoulders:
“Rum chap!... and in reality so easy-going!... But perhaps you would have consented already if I had told you what I expect of you. Lafcadio, my friend, enlighten my perplexity. How is it that you, whom I left in such poverty, refrained from picking up a windfall of six thousand francs dropped at your feet? Does that seem to you natural? Old Monsieur de Baraglioul, Mademoiselle Venitequa told me, happened to die the day after Count Julius, his worthy son, came to pay you a visit; and the evening of the same day you chucked Mademoiselle Venitequa. Since then your connexion with Count Julius has become ... well! well! let’s say exceedingly intimate; would you mind explaining why? Lafcadio, my friend, in old days you were possessed to my knowledge of numerous uncles; since then your pedigree seems to me to have become slightly embaragliouled!... No, no, don’t say anything. I’m only joking. But what is one to suppose?... unless, indeed, you owe your present fortune to Mr. Julius himself?... in which case, allow me to say, that attractive as you are, Lafcadio, the affair seems to me considerably more scandalous still. Whichever way it may be, though, and whatever you let us conjecture, the thing is clear enough, Lafcadio, my friend, and your duty is as plain as a pike-staff—you must blackmail Julius. Come, come, don’t make a fuss! Blackmail is a wholesome institution, necessary for the maintenance of morale. What! what! are you going to leave me?”
Lafcadio had risen.
“Let me pass!” he cried, striding over Protos’s body. Stretched across the compartment from one seat to the other, the latter made no movement to stop him. Lafcadio, astonished at not finding himself detained, opened the corridor door and, as he went off:
“I’m not running away,” he said. “Don’t be alarmed. You can keep your eye on me. But anything is better than listening to you any longer. Excuse me if I prefer the police. Go and inform them. I am ready.”