“Go, all four of you, and bring the lady and the secretary here!”
The four men went out by a door below the spot where Coralie was standing. They were hardly out of sight when the leader stooped eagerly over his victim and said:
“We’re alone, Essarès. It’s what I intended. Let’s make the most of it.”
He bent still lower and whispered so that Patrice found it difficult to hear what he said:
“Those men are fools. I twist them round my finger and tell them no more of my plans than I can help. You and I, on the other hand, Essarès, are the men to come to terms. That is what you refused to admit; and you see where it has landed you. Come, Essarès, don’t be obstinate and don’t shuffle. You are caught in a trap, you are helpless, you are absolutely in my power. Well, rather than allow yourself to be broken down by tortures which would certainly end by overcoming your resistance, strike a bargain with me. We’ll go halves, shall we? Let’s make peace and treat upon that basis. I’ll give you a hand in my game and you’ll give me one in yours. As allies, we are bound to win. As enemies, who knows whether the victor will surmount all the obstacles that will still stand in his path? That’s why I say again, halves! Answer me. Yes or no.”
He loosened the gag and listened. This time, Patrice did not hear the few words which the victim uttered. But the other, the leader, almost immediately burst into a rage:
“Eh? What’s that you’re proposing? Upon my word, but you’re a cool hand! An offer of this kind to me! That’s all very well for Bournef or his fellows. They’ll understand, they will. But it won’t do for me, it won’t do for Colonel Fakhi. No, no, my friend, I open my mouth wider! I’ll consent to go halves, but accept an alms, never!”
Patrice listened eagerly and, at the same time, kept his eyes on Coralie, whose face still contorted with anguish, wore an expression of the same rapt attention. And he looked back at the victim, part of whose body was reflected in the glass above the mantelpiece. The man was dressed in a braided brown-velvet smoking-suit and appeared to be about fifty years of age, quite bald, with a fleshy face, a large hooked nose, eyes deep set under a pair of thick eyebrows and puffy cheeks covered with a thick grizzled beard. Patrice was also able to examine his features more closely in a portrait of him which hung to the left of the fireplace, between the first and second windows, and which represented a strong, powerful countenance with an almost fierce expression.
“It’s an Eastern face,” said Patrice to himself. “I’ve seen heads like that in Egypt and Turkey.”
The names of all these men too—Colonel Fakhi, Mustapha, Bournef, Essarès—their accent in talking, their way of holding themselves, their features, their figures, all recalled impressions which he had gathered in the Near East, in the hotels at Alexandria or on the banks of the Bosphorus, in the bazaars of Adrianople or in the Greek boats that plow the Ægean Sea. They were Levantine types, but of Levantines who had taken root in Paris. Essarès Bey was a name which Patrice recognized as well-known in the financial world, even as he knew that of Colonel Fakhi, whose speech and intonation marked him for a seasoned Parisian.