“You have something to say; come to it at once, for it is trying to watch you so closely.”
“I will give you—” He hesitated and scratched his chin. “I will give you ten thousand crowns as the price of your silence in regard to the South American affair.”
A sardonic laugh greeted this proposal. “I did not know that you were so cheap. But it is too late.”
“Too late?”
“Doubtless, since by this time the authorities are in possession of the interesting facts.”
“I beg to differ from you.”
“Do as you please,” said Maurice, triumphantly. “I sent an account of your former exploits both to my own government and to the one which you so treacherously betrayed. One or the other will not fail to reach.”
“I am perfectly well aware of that,” Beauvais smiled. He reached into a pocket, and for a moment Maurice expected to see a pistol come forth. But he was needlessly alarmed. Beauvais extracted two envelopes from the pocket and sailed them through the intervening space. They fell on the table. “Put not your trust in hotel clerks,” was the sententious observation. “At least, till you have discovered that no one else employs them. I am well served. The clerk was told to intercept your outgoing post; and there is the evidence. Ten thousand crowns and a safe conduct.”
Maurice picked up the letters mechanically. They were his; the stamps were not canceled, but the flaps were slit. He turned them this way and that, bewildered. He was convinced that he could in no way cope with this man of curious industries, this man who seemed to have a key for every lock, and whom nothing escaped. And the wise old Marshal had permitted him to leave the kingdom without let or hindrance. Perhaps the Marshal understood that Beauvais was a sort of powder train, and that the farther he was away from the mine the better for all concerned.
“You are a great rascal,” Maurice said finally.