“Granted that the knife was Monsieur’s, there remains the question of a motive.”
“It is not for me to suggest one. Monsieur, at least, it is to be believed, foresaw no advantage to himself in the event of his padrone’s marriage. It was whispered, indeed, that he had every interest in preventing it. The two came to words, it was reported, on the subject of a settlement—compensation—what you will. That was just before Monsignore’s disappearance. M. Trix also had disappeared—it would seem opportunely. I know nothing more than that. I repeat only to Monsieur the common gossip.”
Gossip, to be sure; but quite reasonably damning. That evening, Monsieur the ex-Prefect, returning unconcerned to the village, was arrested in the street, and conveyed to the prison of the Belfry. He had still friends; there had been voices timely to warn him; he had laughed them away unheeding. Here, perhaps, was to end his part in that pantomime of necessarianism which men played to the gods. He hoped, in the transformation, that he would be found worthy to be made a harlequin. But he was not sure, judged by his present fooling at Fate’s hands, that he was not destined for pantaloon. He took his deposition and the rest with an imperturbable coolness and good humour.
And apart in the dark church lay the body of his father—a hideous thing. Yet there was one, as inhuman though living, who, moved by a sardonic curiosity, could be found to dare the terrors of that mortuary. In the dead of the night Bonito, candle in hand, stood to look upon the corpse. What he saw is not to be described. The ice had preserved it as whole as when, seven years before, it had plunged into the crevasse—as whole, but—It had enclosed as it had caught it—a thing writhed and racked obscenely—a horrible thing like a Guy-Fawkes. They had chipped its glassy prison away from the dead form. In the warmer air, the frosty glaze remaining had already melted, and the body lay in a pool. It looked as if it were struggling to relax its contortions; to settle into the lines of an ancient repose. Sometimes it actually moved. The terror of the suggestion woke no responsive thrill in the watcher’s nerves. He was as stoic, as callous as a Mongol—not unlike one, indeed, in feature and temperament. He bent down, searching with his candle flame. Yes, there was the rat’s head fastened into the shattered breast—gleaming on it, like Death’s own order. There was even a stain of red about its teeth.
He stood up, frowning, grating his chin.
“The same,” he thought—“No doubt about it. What am I to do?”
The lines on his harsh face deepened.
“If I were to see her—bid her a last price, a great price, a fine sufficing price against my keeping silence at the trial? Would she agree—close—see him condemned unwinking—damn herself to this? Is the venture worth? How now, di Rocco?”
The dead man seemed to nod up his head.