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Updated: May 5, 2025
I could not speak of it to you at once." "Murdered?" exclaimed the apothecary in amazement. "And by whom?" "That is the mystery. He was found dead in his study. I will tell you all I know." Meschini communicated the story to his friend in a disjointed fashion, interspersing his narrative with many comments intended to give himself courage to proceed.
It chanced that the former librarian of the Montevarchi died at that time and that the prince was in search of a learned man ready to give his services for a stipend about equal to the wages of a footman. Meschini presented himself and got the place. The old prince was delighted with him and agreed to forget the aforesaid disgrace he had incurred, in consideration of his exceptional qualities.
He lifted Meschini bodily from the chair and set him against the table, holding him up at arm's length, his deep eyes blazing with a rage that would soon be uncontrollable. Meschini's naturally strong constitution did not afford him the relief of fainting. "You killed him why?" asked San Giacinto through his teeth, scarcely able to speak. "For you, for you oh, have mercy do not "
It was nearly two years before he felt himself able to begin his first imitation, but the time and study he had expended were not lost, and the result surpassed his expectations. So ingeniously perfect was the facsimile when finished that Meschini himself would have found it hard to swear to the identity of the original if he had not been allowed to see either of the two for some time.
It would have been better not to come to the apothecary's, but since he found himself there he could not escape from informing him of what had happened. "It is very strange," said the chemist, when he had heard all. Meschini thought he detected a disagreeable look in his eyes. "It is, indeed," he answered. "I am made ill by it. See how my hand trembles. I am cold and hot."
As soon as he began to speak, however, Corona led him away to the window where they had stood together a few hours earlier. "Corona what I told her is not all. There is something else. Meschini had forged the papers which gave the property to San Giacinto. Montevarchi had promised him twenty thousand scudi for the job. It was because he would not pay the money that Meschini killed him.
Meschini could not have taken the doses which a confirmed opium-eater swallows with indifference, but the result produced was far greater in proportion to the amount of the narcotic he consumed. Before the week which followed the deed was ended, he began to see visions when he was apparently awake.
He stooped a little from the neck, and his shoulders sloped in a way that made them look narrower than they really were. As the prince closed the door behind him and advanced, Meschini lifted his cap a little and laid down the book he was carrying, wondering inwardly what had brought his employer to see him at that hour of the morning.
The mere fact that the Saracinesca had not defended the case proved that they admitted the justice of their cousin's claims. Had old Leone foreseen the contingency of a marriage in his old age, he would either never have signed the deed at all, or else he would have introduced just such a conditional clause as had been forged by Meschini.
But she could ask Meschini. She looked at him again, and his face repelled her. Nevertheless, she was too kindhearted not to enter into conversation with the lonely man whom she had so rarely seen, but who was one of the oldest members of her father's household. "You have spent your life here, have you not?" she asked, for the sake of saying something.
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