‘The dinner was all right; but I haven’t been easy in my mind for some time.’
‘It’s the liver, the liver, my dear boy,’ Charcot remarked.
‘What’s the use of troubling yourself about shadows?’ put in the lady. ‘Haven’t the Paris police used some of their best men, and yet failed to get a scent?’
‘That’s true,’ said the stranger; ‘but the affair must come to light sooner or later.’
‘And what if it does?’ asked madame. ‘How are we to be identified with the case?’
‘Not easily, if he is dead,’ answered the stranger. ‘The dead tell no tales.’
‘Then, why in the name of common-sense should he live?’ asked Madame Charcot, blowing a stream of smoke from her nostrils, and speaking with energy.
The stranger shuddered, and said:
‘I’ll have nothing whatever to do with his death.’
‘You are chicken-hearted, man,’ Charcot remarked. ‘One word and an extra hundred francs to old Pierre, and every danger would be removed.’