“So the real search will begin there! The important thing is to have it a brief one. Time is a capital consideration. The speediest solution should be the best....”
He had opened his snuff box, and with one of his fingers was stirring the tobacco about, absent-mindedly:
“Beyond a doubt.... The danger will be less in proportion as it be brief.... Those people will hunt and hunt, and keep hunting for a long time.... A long time, except on one condition....”
He looked at me, and once or twice again he tossed his head in his characteristic manner:
“Except on one condition—the condition that they find immediately ... what they are looking for! What would satisfy them? You, of course, nothing, nobody else—you, alive or dead ... preferably dead!...”
I was certain he was preparing to broach the subject of assassination; and I had quite prepared myself:
“I am in your power,” I observed coldly.
But the marquis frowned and answered curtly:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I thought I had explained to you that we would not kill you even were the failure to do so to cost us dearly.”