“It was lucky for you, you old ruffian,” he said, in a low voice, “that Ya-Bon did not have time to squeeze the breath out of you before you fired that shot. But I wouldn’t chortle overmuch, if I were you. He might perhaps have spared you, whereas, now that Ya-Bon’s dead, you can write to your family and book your seat below. De profundis, Diodokis!” And, giving way to his grief, he added, “Poor Ya-Bon! He saved me from a horrible death one day in Africa . . . and to-day he dies by my orders, so to speak. My poor Ya-Bon!”
Assisted by Patrice, he carried the negro’s corpse into the little bedroom next to the studio.
“We’ll inform the police this evening, captain, when the drama is finished. For the moment, it’s a matter of avenging him and the others.”
He thereupon applied himself to making a minute inspection of the scene of the struggle, after which he went back to Ya-Bon and then to Siméon, whose clothes and shoes he examined closely.
Patrice was face to face with his terrible enemy, whom he had propped against the wall of the lodge and was contemplating in silence, with a fixed stare of hatred. Siméon! Siméon Diodokis, the execrable demon who, two days before, had hatched the terrible plot and, bending over the skylight, had laughed as he watched their awful agony! Siméon Diodokis, who, like a wild beast, had hidden Coralie in some hole, so that he might go back and torture her at his ease!
He seemed to be in pain and to breathe with great difficulty. His wind-pipe had no doubt been injured by Ya-Bon’s clutch. His yellow spectacles had fallen off during the fight. A pair of thick, grizzled eyebrows lowered about his heavy lids.
“Search him, captain,” said Don Luis.
But, as Patrice seemed to shrink from the task, he himself felt in Siméon’s jacket and produced a pocket-book, which he handed to the officer.
It contained first of all a registration-card, in the name of Siméon Diodokis, Greek subject, with his photograph gummed to it. The photograph was a recent one, taken with the spectacles, the comforter and the long hair, and bore a police-stamp dated December, 1914. There was a collection of business documents, invoices and memoranda, addressed to Siméon as Essarès Bey’s secretary, and, among these papers, a letter from Amédée Vacherot, running as follows:
“Dear M. Siméon,