Saved! I should not appear before the Assizes! Good Mattia, dear old Bob! How good of Bob to help Mattia, for Mattia, poor little fellow, could not have done this alone.
I re-read the note. Forty minutes after the train starts… Hill to the left… It was a risky thing to do to jump from a train, but even if I killed myself in doing so, I would better do it. Better die than be condemned as a thief.
Would they think of Capi?
After I had again read my note, I chewed it into a pulp.
The next day, in the afternoon, a policeman came into my cell and told me to follow him. He was a man over fifty and I thought with satisfaction that he did not appear to be very nimble.
Things turned out just as Bob had said. The train rolled off. I took my place near the door where I had entered. The policeman sat opposite me; we were alone in the compartment.
“Do you speak English?” asked the policeman.
“I understand if you don’t talk too rapidly,” I replied.
“Well, then, I want to give you a little advice, my boy,” he said; “don’t try and fool the law. Just tell me how it all happened, and I’ll give you five shillings. It’ll be easier for you if you have a little money in jail.”
I was about to say that I had nothing to confess, but I felt that might annoy the man, so I said nothing.