"I am not hurt, Miss Hilman, but I would I were, if I could thereby gain your sympathy."
"Not hurt!" she repeated aghast at the spectacle he presented, and unable to credit his words. He lay flat on his back, and protruding upward from his closely-buttoned coat was the dagger. It looked as if half the length of the blade had been buried in his body.
The passengers gathered about, horrified and excited, while the man whom they supposed to be dying, sat up in the aisle and deliberately wrenched the blade from his bosom.
"See," he said holding it aloft where nearly everybody could observe it, "the point is badly blunted, and I shall have to grind it down, but there is no blood upon it!"
Then he laughed quietly, sprang to his feet, and with strong arms helped Clara back to her chair. She was horribly shocked by the episode, for Litizki's melancholy meditations rushed back upon her, and she seemed again to hear him promising yet to do something for her that should be of great service. And this was it!
She did not then realize that it was a remark of her own that had inspired his mad brain to action, and it was well that she did not, for it was enough that she should suffer as she did, accusing herself of failing to foresee what would happen if the little tailor were permitted to go on tormenting himself with the mystery, and indulging his immeasurable hatred of Poubalov. How could she have been so selfish, she thought, as to encourage the unfortunate man to devote his life to her purpose, and to arouse such devotion that he was carried by it to the very commission of murder? She shuddered as the word occurred to her, and she looked appealingly at Poubalov, as if to seek from him some further assurance that the miracle had occurred to avert the tragedy that Litizki had planned.
"It is absolutely nothing, Miss Hilman," said the spy, interpreting her glance correctly, "save a hole in my coat and the probable perforation of some interesting documents. I will show you."
Having just placed her in the chair, he was bending over her as he spoke, and now he stood erect, and while all the passengers looked on amazed, he unbuttoned his coat and drew from the breast pocket a large leather wallet filled with papers.
"I wear no armor," he said, smiling as he laid the dagger on the window ledge, that he might use both hands in showing how he had escaped. One side of the wallet had the mark of the knife, a gash clean cut in the leather, evidence sufficient that the blow had fallen with all the force that Litizki could command. Opening the wallet, he took out several folded papers, showing without revealing their nature, that the blade had pierced them. At last he drew forth a little copper plate, and held it up to the light.
"Yes," he said, "that finished it. The wallet itself was almost sufficient to save me, but without this plate I think I should have been scratched a bit. I had this plate engraved a short time ago in New York, as I wished to present my card with my name printed in characters that would be intelligible to English-speaking people. The engraver gave me the plate, of course, when he delivered my cards, and at the moment I put it here for convenience. I had forgotten all about it. You see," handing the plate to a gentleman who stood beside him, "my friend managed to erase my name but he left me my life."