Knew him, and—­more surprising still—­feared him as well!  There was no mistaking the change that passed over the villain’s face.  The leaden hue that altered his yellow complexion in a moment, the sudden rigidity of all his features, the furtive scrutiny of his cold grey eyes, the motionless stillness of him from head to foot told their own tale.  A mortal dread had mastered him body and soul—­and his own recognition of Pesca was the cause of it!

The slim man with the scar on his cheek was still close by us.  He had apparently drawn his inference from the effect produced on the Count by the sight of Pesca as I had drawn mine.  He was a mild, gentlemanlike man, looking like a foreigner, and his interest in our proceedings was not expressed in anything approaching to an offensive manner.

For my own part I was so startled by the change in the Count’s face, so astounded at the entirely unexpected turn which events had taken, that I knew neither what to say or do next.  Pesca roused me by stepping back to his former place at my side and speaking first.

“How the fat man stares!” he exclaimed.  “Is it at me?  Am I famous?  How can he know me when I don’t know him?”

I kept my eye still on the Count.  I saw him move for the first time when Pesca moved, so as not to lose sight of the little man in the lower position in which he now stood.  I was curious to see what would happen if Pesca’s attention under these circumstances was withdrawn from him, and I accordingly asked the Professor if he recognised any of his pupils that evening among the ladies in the boxes.  Pesca immediately raised the large opera-glass to his eyes, and moved it slowly all round the upper part of the theatre, searching for his pupils with the most conscientious scrutiny.

The moment he showed himself to be thus engaged the Count turned round, slipped past the persons who occupied seats on the farther side of him from where we stood, and disappeared in the middle passage down the centre of the pit.  I caught Pesca by the arm, and to his inexpressible astonishment, hurried him round with me to the back of the pit to intercept the Count before he could get to the door.  Somewhat to my surprise, the slim man hastened out before us, avoiding a stoppage caused by some people on our side of the pit leaving their places, by which Pesca and myself were delayed.  When we reached the lobby the Count had disappeared, and the foreigner with the scar was gone too.

“Come home,” I said; “come home, Pesca to your lodgings.  I must speak to you in private—­I must speak directly.”

“My-soul-bless-my-soul!” cried the Professor, in a state of the extremest bewilderment.  “What on earth is the matter?”

I walked on rapidly without answering.  The circumstances under which the Count had left the theatre suggested to me that his extraordinary anxiety to escape Pesca might carry him to further extremities still.  He might escape me, too, by leaving London.  I doubted the future if I allowed him so much as a day’s freedom to act as he pleased.  And I doubted that foreign stranger, who had got the start of us, and whom I suspected of intentionally following him out.