I walked toward the table.

“Well, I forgot to ask M. Morhange, at the beginning, the date and place of his birth.  After that, I had no chance.  I did not see him again.  So I am forced to turn to you.  Perhaps you can tell me?”

“I can,” I said very calmly.

He took a large white card from a box which contained several and dipped his pen.

“Number 54 ...  Captain?”

“Captain Jean-Marie-Francois Morhange.”

While I dictated, one hand resting on the table, I noticed on my cuff a stain, a little stain, reddish brown.

“Morhange,” repeated M. Le Mesge, finishing the lettering of my friend’s name.  “Born at...?”

“Villefranche.”

“Villefranche, Rhone.  What date?”

“The fourteenth of October, 1859.”

“The fourteenth of October, 1859.  Good.  Died at Ahaggar, the fifth of January, 1897....  There, that is done.  A thousand thanks, sir, for your kindness.”

“You are welcome.”

I left M. Le Mesge.

My mind, thenceforth, was well made up; and, as I said, I was perfectly calm.  Nevertheless, when I had taken leave of M. Le Mesge, I felt the need of waiting a few minutes before executing my decision.

First I wandered through the corridors; then, finding myself near my room, I went to it.  It was still intolerably hot.  I sat down on my divan and began to think.

The dagger in my pocket bothered me.  I took it out and laid it on the floor.

It was a good dagger, with a diamond-shaped blade, and with a collar of orange leather between the blade and the handle.

The sight of it recalled the silver hammer.  I remembered how easily it fitted into my hand when I struck....

Every detail of the scene came back to me with incomparable vividness.  But I did not even shiver.  It seemed as if my determination to kill the instigator of the murder permitted me peacefully to evoke its brutal details.

If I reflected over my deed, it was to be surprised at it, not to condemn myself.

“Well,” I said to myself, “I have killed this Morhange, who was once a baby, who, like all the others, cost his mother so much trouble with his baby sicknesses.  I have put an end to his life, I have reduced to nothingness the monument of love, of tears, of trials overcome and pitfalls escaped, which constitutes a human existence.  What an extraordinary adventure!”

That was all.  No fear, no remorse, none of that Shakespearean horror after the murder, which, today, sceptic though I am and blase and utterly, utterly disillusioned, sets me shuddering whenever I am alone in a dark room.

“Come,” I thought.  “It’s time.  Time to finish it up.”

I picked up the dagger.  Before putting it in my pocket, I went through the motion of striking.  All was well.  The dagger fitted into my hand.

I had been through Antinea’s apartment only when guided, the first time by the white Targa, the second time, by the leopard.  Yet I found the way again without trouble.  Just before coming to the door with the rose window, I met a Targa.