Fernet did not see Minetti for some days. Indeed, he had dismissed the whole thing from his mind, when, one night, returning home early to get out of a drizzle, who should stop him on the stairway but the hunchback.
“Ah, so here you are!” called out Fernet, gaily, in spite of his rapidly beating heart. “I have been waiting for you to call on me ever since I heard that you were lodging under the same roof.”
“I have been busy,” replied the hunchback, laconically.
Fernet threw open his bedroom door and waved Minetti in.
“Busy?” he echoed, as he struck a light. “And what do you find that is so absorbing, pray?”
“You know my specialty,” replied Minetti, flinging off his cap.
Fernet looked up sharply. A malignant look had crept into the hunchback’s face.
“Oh, there is no doubt of it, he is quite mad!” said Fernet to himself. Then aloud: “Yes, I have been wanting to talk to you more about this. Take a seat and I shall make some coffee. For instance, do you always employ the knife in despatching your—”
“Scarcely,” interrupted Minetti, quickly. “Slow poison has its fascinations. There is a very delicate joy in watching a gradual decline. It is like watching a green leaf fading before the breath of autumn. First a sickly pallor, then a yellowing, finally the sap dries completely, a sharp wind, a fluttering in the air, and it is all over. I have tried nearly every slow way—except mental murder. I fancy that, too, would be exquisite.”
“Mental murder.... I do not understand.”