"Know what?"
There was a momentary silence. Draconmeyer suddenly gripped his companion by the arm.
"Go on," he insisted. "Tell me?"
"It's all over!" Selingman exclaimed hoarsely. "Jean Coulois came to me a quarter of an hour ago. It is finished. Damnation, Draconmeyer, let go my arm!"
Draconmeyer withdrew his fingers. There was no longer any stoop about him at all. He stood tall and straight, his lips parted, his face turned upwards, upwards as though he would gaze over the roof of the hotel before which they were standing, up to the skies.
"My God, Selingman!" he cried. "My God!"
The seconds passed. Then Draconmeyer suddenly took his companion by the arm.
"Come," he said, "let us take that first seat in the gardens there. Let us talk. Somehow or other, although I half counted upon this, I scarcely believed.... Let us sit down. Do you think it is known yet?"
"Very likely not," Selingman answered, as they crossed the road and entered the gardens. "Coulois found him in his rooms, seated at the writing-table. It was all over, he declares, in ten seconds. He came to me—with the knife. He was on his way to the mountains to hide it."
They found a seat under a drooping lime tree. They could still see the hotel and the level stretch of road that led past the post-office and the Club to Monaco. Draconmeyer sat with his eyes fixed upon the hotel, through which streams of people were still passing. One of the under-managers was welcoming the newcomers from a recently arrived train.