It was not a dream. His arm that he had thrust across his face to protect him from the knife that flashed in the moonlight lay limp and throbbing. The pillow was covered with blood. Not a dream ... no shadows launched from the evil depths of De Medici. His smile deepened. He lay staring at the top of his bed, musing happily....
“A woman with a dagger tried to kill me....”
His eyes, lowering to his wounded arm, startled before a thing that lay on his chest. A black crucifix.
“Hm,” he muttered. “Then there should be a candle ... a lighted candle.”
His head turned to the small table beside the bed. It was standing there. The candlestick he had brought in with him. And from its wick flickered a sun-obscured little flame. He stared intently. A paper-thin, whitened little flame....
“The Ballau murder,” he murmured; “candlestick and crucifix.”
A feeling of panic swept him. The smile vanished. He reached and snuffed out the wick with his fingers.
“The Ballau murder,” he repeated to himself, “but a bit less thorough.”
The smile returned again to his white face. He raised his arm despite the pain in it.... A flesh wound. Terror as much as pain or physical shock had deprived him of his senses during the attack. Now he pushed himself cautiously to a sitting position and, with a strip of linen torn from the sheet, bound his arm. Behind the smile which lighted his worn-looking face he was thinking:
“Ah, what a relief! I breathe again. This wound exonerates me.”