He moved on tiptoe, as though afraid of disturbing the rest of his old employer, and once or twice he looked back.  Then at last he closed the door and retraced his steps through the corridor till he gained the library.  He was surprised at his own boldness as he went, and at the indifference with which he passed by the coat that hung, limp as ever, upon its peg.  He was satisfied, too, with the result of his investigations.  The prince was certainly dead.  As a direct consequence of his death, the secret of the Saracinesca suit was now his own, no one had a share in it, and it was worth money.  He pulled out a number of volumes from the shelves and began to make a pretence of working upon the catalogue.  But though he surrounded himself with the implements and necessaries for his task, his mind was busy with the new scheme that unfolded itself to his imagination.

He and he alone, knew that San Giacinto’s possession of the Saracinesca inheritance rested upon a forgery.  The fact that this forgery must be revealed, in order to reinstate the lawful possessors in their right, did not detract in the least from the value of the secret.  Two courses were open to him.  He might go to old Leone Saracinesca and offer the original documents for sale, on receiving a guarantee for his own safety.  Or he might offer them to San Giacinto, who was the person endangered by their existence.  Montevarchi had promised him twenty thousand scudi for the job, and had never paid the money.  He had cancelled his debt with his life, however, and had left the secret behind him.  Either Saracinesca or San Giacinto would give five times twenty thousand, ten times as much, perhaps, for the original documents, the one in order to recover what was his own, the other to keep what did not belong to him.  The great question to be considered was the way of making the offer.  Meschini sat staring at the opposite row of books, engaged in solving the problem.  Just then, one of the open volumes before him slipped a little upon another and the page turned slowly over.  The librarian started slightly and glanced at the old-fashioned type.  The work was a rare one, which he had often examined, and he knew it to be of great value.  A new thought struck him.  Why should he not sell this and many other volumes out of the collection, as well as realise money by disposing of his secret?  He might as well be rich as possess a mere competence.

He looked about him.  With a little care and ingenuity, by working at night and by visiting the sellers of old books during the day he might soon put together four or five hundred works which would fetch a high price, and replace them by so many feet of old trash which would look as well.  With his enormous industry it would be a simple matter to tamper with the catalogue and to insert new pages which should correspond with the changes he contemplated.  The old prince was dead, and little as he had really known about the library, his sons knew even less.  Meschini could