"I cannot tolerate your smart language," returned Litizki; "give him up now. It will be worse for you if you fool with me. You threw me down in the dark because I was taken unawares. In the light I can make my own fight, Alexander Poubalov! Come! Ivan Strobel is in that room, behind that door, and if you have not stopped his ears as you have gagged his mouth and bound his limbs, he hears my voice now and knows it. I should be less than man should I not take even a desperate step to rescue him, my friend, my benefactor!"
Even to the cynical spy the grotesqueness of the little tailor's figure and make-up disappeared in the exaltation up to which his emotions bore him. He took one determined stride toward the door to the little hall room.
"Nicholas Litizki," said Poubalov, softly.
The tailor turned, such was the compelling power of that deep voice, and for the instant his progress was checked. Poubalov had extended one arm upon the table and his hand was toying with a revolver.
"I believe you, my friend," remarked the spy, hardly looking toward the tailor at first, but later concentrating his gleaming eyes upon him, "I believe you when you say by actions if not by words that you would die for your friend, and that you do not care what becomes of you. But you have some degree of cleverness, Litizki. We learned that years ago. Listen, then, just a moment before you lay hand upon that door. It is locked, Litizki. Before you could open it I could put a bullet through your heart. Would I not dare? What should a peaceable lodger not do to a man who stealthily enters his house by night? Who would disbelieve me if I should calmly report to the police that you came as a burglar, and that I shot at you in protection of property and life? Suppose, however, that I prefer to avoid a disturbance. Before you could more than wrench the knob of that door once, I could pierce your heart silently."
Poubalov rose and stood towering over Litizki, a knife glistening in his right hand.
"You know something of my resources," he continued, "and whether I would be likely to find difficulty in disposing of your lifeless body. Why! you have come so secretly that you and I alone know of your whereabout. We would then have another disappearance to add to the Strobel mystery, but one that would not be half as interesting, Litizki, not half."
"You have killed Ivan Strobel!" whispered Litizki, shrinking away.
"In that inference," said Poubalov, contemptuously, as he laid his weapons on the table and resumed his seat, "your madness reaches its climax and you will speedily recover. You will not go to that door now. You see how useless it would be. Live, and you may yet see your friend, may yet assist in liberating him. Understand me, Nicholas Litizki: I have not come to this country for nothing. I have a mission to perform, and nothing shall prevent me from performing it, and in my own way."