He hugged this thought to him, and grew so enamoured of it that he wondered that he had not had the courage to seize Basterga in the beginning. He had allowed himself to be disturbed by phantoms; there lay the truth. He should have seen that the scholar dared not for his own sake destroy a thing so precious, a thing by which he might, at the worst, ransom his life. The Syndic wondered that he had not discerned that point before: and still in sanguine humour he retired to bed, and slept better than he had slept for weeks, ay, for months. The elixir was his, as good as his; if he did not presently have Messer Basterga by the nape he was much mistaken.
He had had the scholar watched and knew whither he was gone and that he would not return before noon. At nine o'clock, therefore, the hour at which he had directed Claude to come to him at his house, he approached the Royaumes' door. Pluming himself on the stratagem by which twice in the twenty-four hours he had rid himself of an inconvenient witness, he opened the door boldly and entered.
On the hearth, cap in hand, stood not Claude, but Louis. The lad wore the sneaking air as of one surprised in a shameful action, which such characters wear even when innocently employed. But his actions proved that he was not surprised. With finger on his lip, and eyes enjoining caution, he signed to the Syndic to be silent, and with head aside set the example of listening.
The Syndic was not the man to suffer fools gladly, and he opened his mouth. He closed it—all but too late. All but too late, if—the thought sent cold shivers down his back—if Basterga had returned. With an air almost as furtive as that of the lad before him, he signed to him to approach.
Louis crossed the room with a show of caution the more strange as the early December sun was shining and all without was cheerful. "Has he come back?" Blondel whispered.
"Claude?"
"Fool!" Low as the Syndic pitched his tone it expressed a world of contempt. "No, Basterga?"
The youth shook his head, and again laying his finger to his lips listened.
"What! He has not?" Blondel's colour returned, his eyes bulged out with passion. What did the imbecile mean? Because he knew certain things did he think himself privileged to play the fool? The Syndic's fingers tingled. Another second and he had broken the silence with a vengeance, when—
"You are—too late!" Louis muttered. "Too late!" he repeated with protruded lips.