“I told you—­in the cupboard in my room.  Here is the key.  Only—­ for God’s sake—–­”

He was beginning to break down again.  Perhaps, by the habit of the past days he felt the need for drink even in that supreme moment, for his hand sought his pocket as he sat.  Instead of the bottle he felt the cold steel barrel of the revolver, which he had forgotten.  San Giacinto looked towards the notary.

“Is this a full confession, sufficient to commit this man to trial?” he asked.  But before the notary could answer, Meschini’s voice sounded through the room, not weak and broken, but loud and clear.

“It is!  It is!” he cried in sudden and wild excitement.  “I have told all.  The deeds will speak for themselves.  Ah! you would have done better to leave me amongst my books!” He turned to San Giacinto.  “You will never be Prince Saracinesca.  But I shall escape you.  You shall not give me a slow death—­you shall not, I say—­”

San Giacinto made a step towards him.  The proximity of the man who had inspired him with such abject terror put an end to his hesitation.

“You shall not!” he almost screamed.  “But my blood is on your head—­Ah!”

Three deafening reports shook the air in rapid succession, and all that was left of Arnoldo Meschini lay in a shapeless heap upon the floor.  While a man might have counted a score there was silence in the room.  Then San Giacinto came forward and bent over the body, while the notaries and their clerks cowered in a corner.  Saracinesca and Giovanni stood together, grave and silent, as brave men are when they have seen a horrible sight and can do nothing.  Meschini was quite dead.  When San Giacinto had assured himself of the fact, he looked up.  All the fierce rage had vanished from his face.

“He is dead,” he said quietly.  “You all saw it.  You will have to give your evidence in half an hour when the police come.  Be good enough to open the door.”

He took up the body in his arms carefully, but with an ease that amazed those who watched him.  Giovanni held the door open, and San Giacinto deposited his burden gently upon the pavement of the corridor.  Then he turned back and re-entered the room.  The door of the study closed for ever on Arnoldo Meschini.

In the dead silence that followed, San Giacinto approached the table upon which the deed lay, still waiting to be witnessed.  He took it in his hand and turned to Saracinesca.  There was no need for him to exculpate himself from any charge of complicity in the abominable fraud which Montevarchi had prepared before he died.  Not one of the men present even thought of suspecting him.  Even if they had, it was clear that he would not have brought Meschini to confess before them a robbery in which he had taken part.  But there was that in his brave eyes that told his innocence better than any evidence or argument could have proclaimed it.  He held out the document to Saracinesca.