There lay the old coat, wrapped together on the table, as he had left it.  The sun had moved a little farther during his absence, and the heap of cloth looked innocent enough.  Meschini could not understand how it had frightened him so terribly.  He still felt that pleasant warmth about his face and hands.  That was the door before which he had been such a coward.  What was beyond it?  The empty passage.  He would go and hang the coat where it had hung always, where he always left it when he came in the morning, unless he needed it to keep himself warm.  What could be simpler, or easier?  He took the thing in one hand, turned the handle and looked out.  He was not afraid.  The long, silent corridor stretched away into the distance, lighted at intervals by narrow windows that opened upon an inner court of the palace.  Meschini suspended the coat upon the peg and stood looking before him, a contemptuous smile upon his face, as though he despised himself for his former fears.  Then he resolutely walked towards the study, along the familiar way, down a flight of steps, then to the right—­he stood before the door and the dead man was on the other side of it.  He paused and listened.  All was silent.

It was clear to him, as he stood before the table and looked at the body, that no one had been there.  Indeed, Meschini now remembered that it was a rule in the house never to disturb the prince unless a visitor came.  He had always liked to spend the afternoon in solitude over his accounts and his plans.  The librarian, paused opposite his victim and gazed at the fallen head and the twisted, whitened fingers.  He put out his hand timidly and touched them, and was surprised to find that they were not quite cold.  The touch, however, sent a very unpleasant thrill through his own frame, and he drew back quickly with a slight shiver.  But he was not terrified as he had been before.  The touch, only, was disagreeable to him.  He took a book that lay at hand and pushed it against the dead man’s arm.  There was no sign, no movement.  He would have liked to go behind the chair and untie the handkerchief, but his courage was not quite equal to that.  Besides, the handkerchief was Faustina’s.  He had seen her father snatch it from her and throw it upon the floor, as he watched the pair through the keyhole.  A strange fascination kept him in the study, and he would have yielded to it had he not been fortified against any such morbid folly by the brandy he had swallowed.  He thought, as he turned to go, that it was a pity the prince never kept money in the house, for, in that case, he might have helped himself before leaving.  To steal a small value was not worth while, considering the danger of discovery.