“Between six and seven. He has been afraid to come.”
“Yes?” Charles leaned eagerly forward.
“The day he was here he committed a crime, and I could have had him arrested.”
“Ah!”
M. de Cadanet’s voice had grown yet feebler, and Charles, on fire with mad desire to hear, was in terror lest it should fail altogether. He poured out more brandy, but the other pushed it away with an impatient gesture.
“When I ask. Not before. And don’t interrupt me. Where was I?”
“You said you could have had him arrested.”
“So I could. It was this way. You know what straits he was in; you had been clever enough to find out. Well, he had the effrontery to come to me—me, whom he had laughed at—and to invite me to pay his debts; I should say, rather, to lend him money enough to pay them himself.”
“The same thing.”
“Precisely. Then I had my opportunity. I told my gentleman that I had made inquiries and knew all about his affairs. That if he had come well out of them, I would, for his father’s sake, have made over to him two hundred thousand francs; I even showed him the cheque.”