‘If you write anything but your own name I will kill you. I’m watching the point of the pen. Never mind reading what is there. That is my affair. Your business is not to be shot. Don’t sign an assumed name either, or I’ll pull the trigger.’
In sheer terror of his life the man wrote his own name, or at all events the one he went by in his business: ‘Rodolfo Blosse.’
‘You have lost the money you lent to Orlando Schmidt,’ said Castiglione, withdrawing the paper, and quietly waving it to and fro to dry the signature, ‘but you have the advantage of being a live man.’
The revolver did not change its position.
‘You seem to think there are no laws in your country,’ said the treasurer, who was afraid to move.
‘On the contrary we have excellent ones, many of which are made for people like you. Now I am going. I shall walk slowly backwards to the door, and if you move before you hear it shut after me you will never move again. Stay where you are, facing the table, and keep both hands on it.’
All doors in the resorts of the wicked have good locks, and Castiglione turned the key after him and went back to the street entrance, where the ferret-eyed porter was waiting.
‘Always after three o’clock, is it not?’ Castiglione asked carelessly.
The man nodded as he let him out.
‘Yes, sir,’ he answered respectfully, thinking of the twenty francs he had just received from the new member.