"I can believe that."
"Why haven't I done it? Why have I held back the order that was trembling on my lips? Because I admire you, I'm interested in the workings of your mind, I, yes, by God, in spite of your stubbornness and everything, I like you, Coquenil, and I don't want to harm you.
"You may not believe it," he went on, "but when you sent word to the Brazilian Embassy the other day that you would accept the Rio Janeiro offer, after all, I was honestly happy for you, not for myself. What did it matter to me? I was relieved to know that you were out of danger, that you had come to your senses. Then suddenly you went mad again and, and did this. So I said to myself: 'All right, he wants it, he'll get it,' and, I let you read the diary."
"Why?"
"Why?" cried the baron hoarsely. "Don't you see why? You know everything now, everything. It isn't guesswork, it isn't deduction, it's absolute certainty. You have seen my confession, you know that I killed Martinez, that I robbed this girl of her fortune, that I am going to let an innocent man suffer in my place. You know that to be true, don't you?"
"Yes, I know it to be true."
"And because it's true, and because we both know it to be true, neither one of us can draw back. We cannot draw back if we would. Suppose I said to you: 'Coquenil, I like you, I'm going to let you go free.' What would you reply? You would say: 'Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck, I'm much obliged, but, as an honest man, I tell you that, as soon as I am free, I shall proceed to have this enormous fortune you have been wickedly enjoying taken from you and given to its rightful owner.' Isn't that about what you would say?"
"I suppose it is," answered M. Paul.
"You know it is, and you would also say: 'Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck, I shall not only take this fortune from you and make you very poor instead of very rich, but I shall denounce you as a murderer and shall do my best to have you marched out from a cell in the Roquette prison some fine morning, about dawn, between a jailer and a priest, with your legs roped together and your shirt cut away at the back of the neck and then to have you bound against an upright plank and tipped forward gently under a forty-pound knife'—you see I know the details—and then, phsst! the knife falls and behold the head of De Heidelmann-Bruck in one basket and his body in another! That would be your general idea, eh?"
"Yes, it would," nodded the other.