"Sir Lieutenant-Governor," was Márton's hasty reproof; "How could you have such ideas? You expect to become Lieutenant-Governor some day, yet you don't know that he who wishes to pass the frontiers must be supplied with a passport. No one can go without a pass from Pressburg to Vienna; Madame has quite surely despatched Móczli back to bring to her the gentleman with whose 'pass' they are to escape farther."
"What gentleman?"
"An actor from the theatre here, who will arrange that the young gentleman shall pass the frontier with his passport."
"How can you figure it all out?"
Márton paused for a moment, made an ugly mouth, closed his left eye, and hissed through his teeth, as if he would express by all this pantomime that there are things which cannot be held under children's noses.
"Well, never mind; you do wish to be a county officer or something of the kind. So you must know about such things sooner or later, when you will have to examine people on such questions. I will tell you—I know because Móczli once told me just such a story about madame."
"Once before?"
"Certainly," said Márton chuckling wickedly. "Ha ha! Madame is a cute little woman. But then no one knows of it—only Móczli and I; and Madame's husband. Her husband has already pardoned her for it: Móczli was well paid; and what business is it of Márton's? All three of us hold our tongues, like a broiled fish. But it is not the first time it has happened."
I do not know why, but this discovery somehow relieved my bitterness. I began to surmise that Lorand was not the most deeply implicated in the crime.
"Well, let us go first of all to Móczli," said Márton; "But I have a promise to exact from you. Don't say a word yourself; leave the talking to me. For he is a cursed fellow, this Móczli; if he finds that we wish to get information out of him, he will lie like a book: but I will suddenly drive in upon him, so that he will not know whether to turn to the right or to the left. I will spring something on him as if I knew all about it, that will scare him out of his wits and then I'll press him close, so that it'll take his breath away, and before he knows it I'll have that secret squeezed out of him to the very last drop. You must observe how it is done, so that you can make use of similar methods in the future when in the position of Lieutenant-Governor you will have to cross-question some suspicious rascal in order to wring the truth out of him!"