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Updated: June 28, 2025
Oblige me by handing my man your key," I added, turning again on Brunow. He shot a whisper at me. "Do you wish to have me murdered?" "I wish to know," I answered, "and I mean to know, the truth. What have you done with Ruffiano?" "I tell you," he cried, desperately, "I have done nothing! I know nothing! You were there yourself, and you can tell as well as I that the whole thing was a surprise.
Just as I came upon Charing Cross I sighted Ruffiano; and he, seeing me at the same moment, hurried across the street in his impetuous fashion, and barely escaped being run over. The escape was so very close, that when he reached me I congratulated him heartily, though if I had known what was going to happen I might much more properly have commiserated him.
But, of course, I had not the faintest reason for suspecting anybody, and we went rumbling on, I pretty sleepy, and pretty full of a satisfactory dinner after a hungry day, and Brunow and Ruffiano silent, as it seemed to me, nearly the whole length of the road.
He made no answer, and I walked along with him, Hinge following at a distance of a yard or two, and so far, of course, suspecting nothing. Not a word was spoken by the way, and Brunow walked like a man who was going to the scaffold. When we came to iny own rooms I locked the door and faced him. "What have you done with Ruffiano?" I asked him, sternly.
So I made arrangements to meet Ruffiano and to dine with him at the same Italian restaurant in the upper room of which we held our meeting, and after this I shook hands and went about my own business. It was dark when we met again, for this was only the fifth day of March, and it was about half-past six in the evening.
The Count Ruffiano, a head and shoulders taller than myself, stood in the middle of the room and bowed with surprising courtliness when I entered. He was six feet seven or eight in stature, had an eagle beak, a huge gray mustache, and a head of stiff, upstanding hair, close cropped and mottled in jet black and snow white.
I sang out aloud to the man to ask where he was going, but he returned no answer save in a sneering and insolent-sounding growl, which might have meant anything or nothing. My conclusion was that he was coming back in time to take us away again, and I gave the matter no further heed, but followed Ruffiano on deck, still unsuspicious.
You are as well aware of that fact as I am, and you know that nothing could have saved you from my just renunciation but the memory of an old friendship, of which you have proved yourself utterly unworthy." "I know you're talking nonsense," he responded, trying to brave it out still. "What should I want to betray old Ruffiano for?"
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