“Wait!” said Nicolo Capriano ungraciously.
Teresa was back in a moment with an armful of clothing, which, at her father's direction, she deposited on the foot of the bed.
Nicolo Capriano waved her from the room. He leered at Barjan.
“Well, are those the clothes there that you and your police are using to blindfold your eyes with, or are they not—eh? Are those Dave Henderson's clothes?”
Barjan had already pounced upon the clothing, and was pawing it over feverishly.
“Good God—yes!” he burst out sharply.
“And the clothes that the dead man had on—let me see”—Nicolo Capriano's voice was tauntingly triumphant, as, with eyes half closed, visualizing for himself the attire of one Ignace Ferroni, he slowly enumerated the various articles of dress worn by the actual victim of the explosion. He looked at Barjan maliciously, as he finished. “Well,” he demanded, “was there enough left of what the man had on to identify any of those things? If so——” Nicolo Capriano shrugged his shoulders by way of finality.
“Yes, yes!” Barjan's excitement was almost beyond his control. “Yes, that is what he wore, but—good Lord, Capriano!—what does this mean? I don't understand!”
“About the clothes?” inquired Nicolo Capriano caustically. “But I should know what he had on since they were my clothes—eh? And you have only to look at the ones there on the bed to find out for yourself why I gave him some that, though I do not say they were new, for I have not bought any clothes in the three damnable and cursed years that I have lain here, were at least not all torn to pieces—eh?”
Barjan was pacing up and down the room now. When the other's back was turned, Nicolo Capriano permitted a sinister and mocking smile to hover on his lips; when Barjan faced the bed, Nicolo Capriano eyed the officer with a sour contempt into which he injected a sort of viciously triumphant self-vindication.