“This Sacovitch chap didn't see me, sir,” said Hinge, with a certain modest exultation; “I took care of that. But I nips half-way upstairs after him, and sees him open the door with his latch-key, and then I nips down again.”
“Do you think he would know you if he saw you?” I asked.
“There's no saying about that, sir,” Hinge responded; “he might and he mightn't. You see, sir, he's a swell in his own way, this chap is. He used to dine with the general, and they used to salute him like as if he was an officer. There was every reason, don't you see, sir, why I should notice him, and there was no mortal reason in the world why he should notice me. But there's no mistaking him, sir, and I should have spotted his ugly mug among a million.”
“Thank you very much, Hinge. That will do.” Hinge went away, and I sat down to think this new matter over. Of course I had never been foolish enough to suppose that Brunow had given me any information of value against his party, outside the one admission that he had been hired by the Baroness Bonnar; but here was sudden proof of the incompleteness of his confession. Shall I confess that my first impulse was to do an extremely silly and inconsiderate thing? I felt inclined, foolish as it will sound, to walk upstairs and to introduce myself sardonically to Herr Sacovitch, since that was the gentleman's name, with the proclamation of my newly-acquired knowledge of his business, and request that he would waste no further time in prosecuting it so far as I was concerned. But this foolish desire had scarcely occurred to me before I threw it out of the window. If the man believed himself to be unknown, I had the whip-hand of him in knowing him, and to have exposed my knowledge would only have been to release him for the prosecution of useful business on his own side, while some other person, whom I might never have the luck to recognize at all, would take his place. I was rather flattered, on the whole, to think that a great European power like Austria found it worth while to put a watch upon my actions; but there was only a passing satisfaction in that fancy. I could not get poor old Ruffiano out of ray head that night. I undressed and went to bed, but I courted sleep in vain. All night long I heard the quarters strike, and then the hours, and all night long the picture of the good, genial, patient, suffering old man fairly haunted me. There were times when I blamed myself severely for having allowed his betrayer to go free at all, and there were moments when, if Brunow had been once again before me, I should have had no control over myself. But, after all, mercy is just as much a duty as justice, and on looking back I am not disposed to censure myself very heavily for the course I took. I can think of nothing more hateful than Brunow's crime, and of nothing more just than the punishment which finally befell him; but I am glad that the act of vengeance was not mine.
It was bright morning when at last I fell asleep, and before that happened I had formed one clear resolution. This was to seek out Violet in the course of the day, to let-her know what had happened, and consult her judgment as to what my own course should be. In the meantime Brunow, in a debtor's prison, could do no further mischief, and was, at the same time, safe from immediate vengeance. There was time for a pause before further action was needed, and it was this reflection more than anything else which calmed me down at last into a state of mind in which sleep was possible.
I breakfasted at the usual time, for Hinge in household matters was a perfect martinet, and all my home affairs were as punctual as a clock. Then, at as early an hour as I dared to venture on, I walked to Lady Rollinson's house. The servant who answered my summons at the door had been in the habit of skipping on one side at once, and throwing the door open in something of an excess of hospitality. I had sometimes even felt a touch of humorous anger at the man; for his fashion of receiving me had seemed to indicate that he was in possession of the secret of the position, and it was as if his flourish of welcome showed an approval of my suit. But to-day he held the door half open, and, before I could get out a word of inquiry, said, “Not at hom?”
“Neither Lady Rollinson nor Miss Rossano?” I asked him.
“Not at home, sir,” the man repeated. He looked conscious beneath my eye, and his manner was distinctly embarrassed.
“Are you quite sure of that?” I asked him. “Kindly go and see.” The man looked more discomposed than ever, but he said for the third time: “Not at home, sir.” And in the face of this repeated declaration it seemed useless to inquire again. I walked away, a little puzzled by the man's manner. I had heard of no intended visit, and so far as I could guess I knew of every plan which Violet and Lady Rollinson had formed. It is not usual for an accepted suitor to be met at the door of his fiancee's house with that curt formula, and I went away dissatisfied and wondering, turning my steps homeward. I had made up my mind to dismiss the whole circumstance and to write to Violet, and I was walking up the stairs which led to my chambers, in haste to put that little project into execution, when I ran full against a stranger on the landing. He raised his hat with an apology, and I was in the act of doing the same when his foreign accent induced me to look more closely at him. He was a tall, dark man, very gentlemanly to look at and irreproachably dressed. In a dark, saturnine way he was handsome, and recalling Hinge's statement that he would have known the ugly mug of our fellow-lodger among a million, I settled within my own mind that this could not be the man; but I still observed him with a little interest in the certainty that if not the man himself, he was at least a visitor. Hinge was at the door when I reached it.
“Did you spot him, sir?” he asked, eagerly. “That's him as you ran into on the stairs—Sacovitch.”