“Well, why do they not come—eh?” he muttered impatiently. “Why do they not come?”
He relapsed into silence, but he no longer lay there placidly with his eyes closed. A strange excitement seemed to be growing upon him. It tinged the skin under his beard with a hectic flush, and the black eyes glistened and glinted abnormally, as they kept darting objectiveless glances here and there around the room.
Perhaps half an hour passed, and then the sick man began to mutter again:
“Will they make me send for them—the fools!” He apostrophized the foot of the bed viciously. “No, no—it would not be as safe. If they do not come in another hour, there will be time enough then for that. You must wait, Nicolo. The police have always come before to Nicolo Capriano, if they thought old Nicolo could help them—and with a bomb—ha, ha—to whom else would they come—eh?—to whom———-”
He was instantly alert. Some one was outside there now. He heard the door bell ring, and presently he heard Teresa answer it. He caught a confused murmur of voices. The thin fingers were working with a quick, jubilant motion one over the other. The black eyes, half closed again, fixed expectantly on the door of the room opposite to the foot of the bed. It opened, and Teresa stepped into the room.
“It is Lieutenant Barjan, father,” she said, in a low tone. “He wants to talk to you about that bomb explosion in the park.”
“So!” A queer smile twitched at the old bomb king's lips. He beckoned to his daughter to approach the bed, and, as she obeyed, he pulled her head down to his lips. “You know nothing, Teresa—nothing! Understand? Nothing except to corroborate anything that I may say. You did not even know that there had been an explosion until he spoke of it. You know nothing about Ignace. You understand?”
“Yes,” she said composedly.
“Good!” he whispered. “Well, now, go and tell him that I do not want to see him. Tell him I said he was to go away. Tell him that I won't see him, that I won't be bothered with him and his cursed police spies! Tell him that”—he patted his daughter's head confidentially—“and leave the door open, Teresa, little one, so that I can hear.”
“What do you mean to do, father?” she asked quickly.