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Updated: June 24, 2025
Paul held the lamp down, and through the mud and blood Claude de Chauxville's clear-cut features were outlined. Death is always unmistakable, though it be shown by nothing more than a heap of muddy clothes. Claude de Chauxville was lying across the passage.
He had been trodden underfoot by the stream of maddened peasants who had entered by this door which had been opened for them, whom Steinmetz had checked at the foot of the stairs by shooting their ringleader. De Chauxville's scalp was torn away by a blow, probably given with a spade or some blunt instrument. His hand, all muddy and bloodstained, still held a revolver.
The tone of the big man in the arm-chair was not dry. Karl Steinmetz knew better than to indulge in that pastime. Dryness is apt to parch the fount of expansiveness. De Chauxville's attention was apparently caught by an illustration in a weekly paper lying open on the table near to him. Your shifty man likes something to look at. He did not speak for some moments. Then he threw the paper aside.
For in that flash of thought Claude de Chauxville saw Paul's secrets given to him; Paul's wealth meted out to him; Paul in exile; Paul dead in Siberia, where death comes easily; Paul's widow Claude de Chauxville's wife. He wiped all the thoughts away, and showed to Vassili a face that was as composed and impertinent as usual. "You said 'her eh husband," he observed. "Why?
Her invitation to dine, couched in the usual friendly words, had been the first move in that game commonly called "bluff." Claude de Chauxville's acceptance of the same had been the second move. And these two persons, who were not afraid of each other, shook hands with a pleasant smile of greeting, while Paul hurried toward them through the busy streets.
"When you have promised to keep the secret you may go," said Steinmetz. "You must swear it." De Chauxville's lips moved, but no sound came from them. Steinmetz poured some water into a tumbler and gave it to him. "It had to come to this," he said, "sooner or later. Paul would have killed you; that is the only difference.
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