With a turn of the hand Saniel disentangled the cords, and the curtains slid on the rods, almost covering the window.

“It is true a good deal of air did come in the window,” Caffie said.  “I thank you, my dear doctor.”

All this was done with a feverish rapidity that astonished Caffie.

“Decidedly, you are in a hurry,” he said.

“Yes, in a great hurry.”

He looked at his watch.

“However, I have still time to give you a consultation if you desire it.”

“I would not trouble you—­”

“You do not trouble me.”

“But—­”

“Sit down in your armchair, and show me your mouth.”

While Caffie seated himself, Saniel continued in a vibrating voice: 

“You see I give good for evil.”

“How is that, my dear sir?”

“You refuse me a service that would save me, and I give you a consultation.  It is true, it is the last.”

“And why the last, my dear sir?”

“Because death is between us.”

“Death!”

“Do you not see it?”

“No.”

“I see it.”

“You must not think of such a thing, my dear sir.  One does not die because one cannot pay three thousand francs.”

The chair in which Caffie seated himself was an old Voltaire, with an inclined back, and he half reclined in it.  As his shirtcollar was too large for him since he had become thin, and his narrow cravat was scarcely tied, he displayed as much throat as jaw.

Saniel, behind the chair, had taken the knife in his right hand, while he pressed the left heavily on Caffies forehead, and with a powerful stroke, as quick as lightning, he cut the larynx under the glottis, as well as the two carotid arteries, with the jugular veins.  From this terrible wound sprang a large jet of blood, which, crossing the room, struck against the door.  Cut clean, not a cry could be formed in the windpipe, and in his armchair Caffie shook with convulsions from head to foot.

Leaving his position behind the chair, Saniel, who had thrown the knife on the floor, looked at his watch and counted the ticking of the second-hand in a low voice.

“One, two, three-”

At the end of ninety seconds the convulsions ceased.

It was twenty-three minutes after five.  Now it was important that he should hurry and not lose a second.

The blood, after having gushed out, had run down the body and wet the vest pocket in which was the key of the safe.  But blood does not produce the same effect upon a doctor as upon those who are not accustomed to its sight and odor, and to its touch.  In spite of the lukewarm sea in which it lay, Saniel took the key, and after wiping his hand on one of the tails of Caffie’s coat, he placed it in the lock.

Would it turn freely, or was it closed with a combination?  The question was poignant.  The key turned and the door opened.  On a shelf and in a wooden bowl were packages of bank-notes and rolls of gold that he had seen the evening when the bank-clerk came.  Roughly, without counting; he thrust them into his pocket, and without closing the safe, he ran to the front door, taking care not to step in the streams of blood, which, on the sloping tiled floor, ran toward this door.  The time was short.