CHAPTER XII
JEAN LE ROI
Over a marble-topped table in a retired corner of the café Stephen Hurd listened to the story of the man whom Macheson had delivered over to him, and the longer he listened the more interesting he found it. When at last all was told, the table itself was strewn with cigarette stumps, and their glasses had three times been replenished. The faces of both men were flushed.
“You see,” the little man said, glancing for a moment at his yellow-stained fingers, and then beginning to puff furiously at a fresh cigarette, “the time is of the shortest. Jean le Roi—well, his time is up! He may be here to-morrow, the next day, who can tell? And when he comes he will kill her! That is certain!”
Hurd shuddered and drank some of his whisky.
“Look here,” he said, “we mustn’t have that. Revenge, of course, he will want—but there are other ways.”
The little man blinked his eyes.
“You do not know Jean le Roi,” he said. “To him it is a pastime to kill! For myself I do not know the passions as he would know them. Where there was money I would not kill. It would be as you have said—there are other ways. But Jean le Roi is different.”
“Jean le Roi, as you call him, must be tamed, then,” Hurd said. “You speak of money. I have been her agent, so I can tell you. What do you think might be the income of this lady?”