“Now you see,” I answered, “you make a show of speaking the truth to me, and then you go and tell me that. I don’t believe it, of course. What were you in for? I suppose you’ll say for shop-lifting, or turnip-pulling, or sleeping out of doors, or something equally convincing.”
“I was in for nozzing at all. It was a false charge; it was made by a devil.”
“Of course. That’s even less than I imagined. And you are on your way now to bring that devil to book for it, I suppose?”
“Yes, I am on my way, when the snow take me into its cold pillows, and I die in zat bed but for you.”
The quietness of his manner impressed me in spite of myself.
“Why did you call yourself Smith—come now?” I said.
“I tell you a lie,” he answered at once. “It was just zat he might miss to hear of me—not guess the truce of the vengeance which arrives to him at last.”
“He? Who?” I asked apprehensively. This matter was assuming a more sinister complexion than I quite liked. “I say, my friend, I hope your looks are belying you. You haven’t got a knife in your pocket, have you?”
“Signore,” he said earnestly, almost piteously, “I beg zat you not force of me, your servant, to answer. For myself I will confess the truce that I lie. My name is Antonio Geoletti.”
What chord of memory was suddenly touched in my brain? For a moment I could not identify it—and then, all in a flash, it had leapt upon me out of the dark. Geoletti! the name of the Italian guide mentioned in Charlie Skene’s letter!