The effect was precisely what Tarsis counted upon when he made the midnight run in the motor car to Castel-Minore and dropped the letter into the post-office. Mario gave the sheet to a candle flame, destroying the only scrap that might be used against Tarsis should the Panther, by chance, bungle his work. Next he looked at the clock and saw that with a good horse there was time to reach the monastery at the hour. The new excitement brought back the heavy throbbing at his temples and sharper pain from the wound. He rang for the servant and astounded him by saying:
“I must go to the Brianza. There are no trains. Have Bruno saddled at once.”
CHAPTER XIX
WHAT MONEY COULD NOT BUY
Tarsis spared no pains in the laying of a plan, but that done, and the work of execution satisfactorily begun, he awaited the result with confidence and equable temper. It was so with even such an exceptional emprise as that of taking the life of Mario Forza. With the decoying letter in the post-office, he felt that the affair was well in train; so he went to his bed and slept soundly. It lacked something less than two hours of mid-day when he rang for his valet de chambre. Instead of the usual prompt appearance of that individual, he was surprised by the sleek face of Beppe at the door; it was a pale and haggard face as well this morning, with alarm looking out from its heavy eyes. His voice and his hand trembled while he explained that all the other domestics had quit the palace an hour before.
“What is the matter?” Tarsis asked, eyeing him keenly.
“Signore, they were afraid to stay any longer.”
“Of what are they afraid?”
“The mob, signore; the mob! Much has happened since you went to bed. The working people have gone mad. A gang of them entered the palace of the Corvini and sacked it, they say, from cellar to roof besides killing the young Duke and three of the servants who tried to drive them back. It is war, signore. Look!”
He went to the window and swept back the drapery, to reveal the scene of a military camp. On the opposite side of the Corso, within the paling of the Public Gardens, a regiment of infantry was bivouacked. For an absorbed minute Tarsis stared out, as Beppe thought, upon the rows of white tents and patrolling sentries; but he had seen a solitary figure moving toward the Venetian Gate that had more interest for him. There was no mistaking that forward bend of the head and slinking movement. It was the Panther. Tarsis consulted his watch and wondered if his accomplice were thus early on his way to the monastery. Then he turned to Beppe and remarked, in the tone of one coolly weighing the situation:
“This part of the city, I take it, has been saved from disorder so far?”