“Here?” André stared at him in astonishment.
“Here and at once.” He walked to the door. “Two torches,” he called, “two torches.”
When he had lit them the Chevalier marched out. “This way,” he said politely; “permit me to show you, with infinite regret, where you can kill me.”
Half expecting a trick or foul play André followed him cautiously until he stopped in a deserted stable yard, paved and clean, and completely shut in by high walls. The young man gravely placed one torch in a ring on the north wall and the other on the wall opposite.
“That,” he said, in the pleasantest manner possible, “will make the lights fair. You”—he pointed to the west—“will stand there, or here, if you prefer, to the east. You will agree, doubtless, that to a man who is to be killed it is a trifle where he stands.”
The torches flared smokily in the April dusk. He was mad, this boyish fool, stark, raving mad. But how prettily and elegantly he played the part.
“See,” the Chevalier said lightly, “there is no one to interrupt—the murder. Toinette knows neither my name nor yours; she will hold her tongue for money and in half an hour you will be gone—and I”—he shrugged his shoulders—“well, it is clean lying here, cleaner, anyway, than under the grass in that dirty churchyard.”
“You mean it?” André asked slowly.
The Chevalier took off his saucy hat and fine coat, hung them upon one of the rusty rings in the wall, and turned back his lace ruffles. A flash—his sword had cut a rainbow through the dusk across the yellow flare of the torches. “I am at your service, Vicomte,” he said with a low bow. “And I shall return to the château when and how I please, and I shall be welcome, eh?”
“By God!” André ripped out. “By God! I will kill you.”