‘I have not thought it best to talk much with you about the letters, my dear,’ Montalto said. ‘In such cases it is the man’s business to act.’
Maria smiled faintly. She foresaw much useless trouble if he carried out the intention he had been so long in formulating, though she knew nothing of the ways of the police. For two whole days she had lived in the certainty that she was safe, and the thought that the whole story was to be told again, to a stranger and by her husband, was very disturbing. On the other hand it seemed all but impossible to show Montalto the blackmailer’s confession, written in Castiglione’s handwriting, and signed by him as a witness.
‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, ‘since it is already so near the eighth day, we had better wait until they write a second time, as the letter said they would.’
Montalto looked at her in surprise, and paused in the act of reconstructing one of his Havana cigarettes.
‘Why, my dear?’ he asked. ‘You yourself urged me to act, before I had time to form an opinion, and you seemed distressed because I took a day or two to think it over; and now you suddenly advise me not to act at all. This is very strange. I do not understand you.’
He waited for her to answer him, and he saw that she hesitated.
‘You must have some very good reason for changing your mind so unexpectedly,’ he said, in a discontented tone, and resumed the rolling of his cigarette.
Maria felt the difficulty of the situation, for which she was not in the least prepared; she had been very sure that he would not do anything in the matter, because she hoped that he would not.
‘Also,’ he continued, ‘why do you speak of more than one person?’
‘More than one?’