“Then you are trying to say it and not to say it. You wish to be paid in advance for information probably chimerical.”
“No, I have only demanded your lordship’s signature, to be used in case you shall afterwards be satisfied with what you receive from me.”
“I never give my signature. If any one doubts me, so much the worse for him.”
“In that case, your lordship, I will carry my secret away with me again. He whom it concerns, at least as much as it does yourself, shall have it for nothing.”
Tebaldo was going resolutely out of the cabinet, when the baron recalled him. These two men were both secretly agitated, and for a similar cause: they were afraid of each other. Before Guido had had time to lay his hand upon the knob of the door, he said to himself: “I am crazy; the baron will have me assassinated to secure my silence.” Upon his side, the baron reflected: “Perhaps he has already spoken; he alone can tell me what I really have to fear.”
“M. Tebaldo,” said the baron, “suppose I should tell you that I have known him longer than you imagine?”
“I should be delighted on your account, your lordship,” answered the Italian, with audacity.
“This person is not dead. He is here—or at least he was here yesterday. I saw him, and recognized him.”
“Recognized him?” said Massarelli, with surprise.
“Yes, recognized. I know what I am saying. He called himself by the name of Goefle, either with or without the permission of a respectable gentleman of that name. You can therefore speak freely. You see that I am on the right track, and that it is simply puerile to endeavor to direct my suspicions upon this mountebank, Waldo.”