“Is this bravado worth while any longer, Brunow?” I asked him. “I have no resource but to keep my word. If my man enters the room before you have spoken, he shall go on his errand, and then may Heaven have mercy on the soul of a traitor!”
Hinge's footstep came nearer, and his key touched the lock with a smart click. Brunow rose to his feet as if without any volition of his own, and made a sign with his hand against the door.
“You wish him to remain outside?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and, falling back into the chair from which he had arisen, covered his white face with both hands. He had allowed his burning cigar to fall upon the carpet, and, a faint odor of acrid smoke reaching my nostrils, I looked for it, found it, and threw it into the empty grate. This trivial action seemed as important at the moment as anything else.
Hinge knocked at the door, but I told him to go down-stairs, and to detain the cab until I should call him. I heard the closing of the outer door, and heard every step of Hinge's feet until he reached the bottom of the stairs. Then the silence was so intense that I could hear Brunow's watch quite distinctly as it ticked in his pocket, and my own kept time to it.
“You have decided wisely,” I said at last; “and when you have told me the truth you shall have your chance.” He was silent for so long a time that I had to urge him. “I shall not wait forever.”
“Well,” he said, desperately, looking up at me for a mere instant, and then, burying his face in his hands again, “tell me what you want to know.”
“I want,” I told him, “to know the truth about the whole of this miserable business. Who employed you here?”
“Employed me!” he responded.
“Who paid you for this act of treachery?”