Deulin picked up the knife, which lay gleaming on the cobble-stones, and came towards Cartoner with it. Then he turned aside, and carefully dropped it between the bars of the street gutter, where it fell with a muddy splash.
“He will never use that hand again,” he said. “Poor devil! I only hope he was well paid for it.”
“Doubt it.”
Deulin was feeling in the pocket of his top-coat.
“Have you an old envelope?” he inquired.
Cartoner handed him what he asked for. It happened to be the envelope of the letter he had received a few days earlier, denying him his recall. And Deulin carefully wiped the blade of the sword-stick with it. He tore it into pieces and sent it after the knife. Then he polished the bright steel with his pocket-handkerchief, from the evil point to the hilt, where the government mark and the word “Toledo” were deeply engraved.
“Unless I keep it clean it sticks,” he explained. “And if you want it at all, you want it in a hurry—like a woman's heart, eh?”
He was looking up and down the street as he spoke, and shot the blade back into its sheath. He turned and examined the ground to make sure that nothing was left there.
“The light was good,” he said, appreciatively, “and the ground favorable for—for the autumn manoeuvres.”
And he broke into a gay laugh.