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“Caviare!” cried Sernine. “Now, that’s too sweet of you … You remembered that you were entertaining a Russian prince!”

They sat down facing each other, with the baron’s greyhound, a large animal with long, silver hair, between them.

“Let me introduce Sirius, my most faithful friend.”

“A fellow-countryman,” said Sernine. “I shall never forget the one which the Tsar was good enough to give me when I had the honor to save his life.”

“Ah, you had that honor … a terrorist conspiracy, no doubt?”

“Yes, a conspiracy got up by myself. You must know, this dog—its name, by the way, was Sebastopol …”

The lunch continued merrily. Altenheim had recovered his good humor and the two men vied with each other in wit and politeness. Sernine told anecdotes which the baron capped with others; and it was a succession of stories of hunting, sport and travel, in which the oldest names in Europe were constantly cropping up: Spanish grandees, English lords, Hungarian magyars, Austrian archdukes.

“Ah,” said Sernine, “what a fine profession is ours! It brings us into touch with all the best people. Here, Sirius, a bit of this truffled chicken!”

The dog did not take his eyes off him, and snapped at everything that Sernine gave it.

“A glass of Chambertin, prince?”

“With pleasure, baron.”

“I can recommend it. It comes from King Leopold’s cellar.”

“A present?”

“Yes, a present I made myself.”

“It’s delicious … What a bouquet! … With this 
pâté de foie gras
, it’s simply wonderful! … I must congratulate you, baron; you have a first-rate chef.”

“My chef is a woman-cook, prince. I bribed her with untold gold to leave Levraud, the socialist deputy. I say, try this hot chocolate-ice; and let me call your special attention to the little dry cakes that go with it. They’re an invention of genius, those cakes.”

“The shape is charming, in any case,” said Sernine, helping himself. “If they taste as good as they look … Here, Sirius, you’re sure to like this. Locusta herself could not have done better.”

He took one of the cakes and gave it to the dog. Sirius swallowed it at a gulp, stood motionless for two or three seconds, as though dazed, then turned in a circle and fell to the floor dead.

Sernine started back from his chair, lest one of the footmen should fall upon him unawares. Then he burst out laughing:

“Look here, baron, next time you want to poison one of your friends, try to steady your voice and to keep your hands from shaking … Otherwise, people suspect you … But I thought you disliked murder?”

“With the knife, yes,” said Altenheim, quite unperturbed. “But I have always had a wish to poison some one. I wanted to see what it was like.”

“By Jove, old chap, you choose your subjects well! A Russian prince!”

He walked up to Altenheim and, in a confidential tone, said:

“Do you know what would have happened if you had succeeded, that is to say, if my friends had not seen me return at three o’clock at the latest? Well, at half-past three the prefect of police would have known exactly all that there was to know about the so-called Baron Altenheim; and the said baron would have been copped before the day was out and clapped into jail.”

“Pooh!” said Altenheim. “Prison one escapes from … whereas one does not come back from the kingdom where I was sending you.”

“True, but you would have to send me there first; and that’s not so easy.”

“I only wanted a mouthful of one of those cakes.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Try.”

“One thing’s certain, my lad: you haven’t the stuff yet which great adventurers are made of; and I doubt if you’ll ever have it, considering the sort of traps you lay for me. A man who thinks himself worthy of leading the life which you and I have the honor to lead must also be fit to lead it, and, for that, must be prepared for every eventuality: he must even be prepared not to die if some ragamuffin or other tries to poison him … An undaunted soul in an unassailable body: that is the ideal which he must set before himself … and attain. Try away, old chap. As for me, I am undaunted and unassailable. Remember King Mithridates!”

He went back to his chair:

“Let’s finish our lunch. But as I like proving the virtues to which I lay claim, and as, on the other hand, I don’t want to hurt your cook’s feelings, just pass me that plate of cakes.”

He took one of them, broke it in two and held out one half to the baron:

“Eat that!”

The other gave a movement of recoil.

“Funk!” said Sernine.

And, before the wondering eyes of the baron and his satellites, he began to eat the first and then the second half of the cake, quietly, conscientiously, as a man eats a dainty of which he would hate to miss the smallest morsel.

They met again.

That same evening, Prince Sernine invited Baron Altenheim to dinner at the Cabaret Vatel, with a party consisting of a poet, a musician, a financier and two pretty actresses, members of the Théâtre Français.

The next day, they lunched together in the Bois and, at night, they met at the Opéra.

They saw each other every day for a week. One would have thought that they could not do without each other and that they were united by a great friendship, built up of mutual confidence, sympathy and esteem.

They had a capital time, drinking good wine, smoking excellent cigars, and laughing like two madmen.

In reality, they were watching each other fiercely. Mortal enemies, separated by a merciless hatred, each feeling sure of winning and longing for victory with an unbridled will, they waited for the propitious moment: Altenheim to do away with Sernine; and Sernine to hurl Altenheim into the pit which he was digging for him.

Each knew that the catastrophe could not be long delayed. One or other of them must meet with his doom; and it was a question of hours, or, at most, of days.

It was an exciting tragedy, and one of which a man like Sernine was bound to relish the strange and powerful zest. To know your adversary and to live by his side; to feel that death is waiting for you at the least false step, at the least act of thoughtlessness: what a joy, what a delight!

One evening, they were alone together in the garden of the Rue Cambon Club, to which Altenheim also belonged. It was the hour before dusk, in the month of June, at which men begin to dine before the members come in for the evening’s card-play. They were strolling round a little lawn, along which ran a wall lined with shrubs. Beyond the shrubs was a small door. Suddenly, while Altenheim was speaking, Sernine received the impression that his voice became less steady, that it was almost trembling. He watched him out of the corner of his eye. Altenheim had his hand in the pocket of his jacket; and Sernine 
saw
 that hand, through the cloth, clutch the handle of a dagger, hesitating, wavering, resolute and weak by turns.

O exquisite moment! Was he going to strike? Which would gain the day: the timid instinct that dare not, or the conscious will, intense upon the act of killing?

His chest flung out, his arms behind his back, Sernine waited, with alternate thrills of pleasure and of pain. The baron had ceased talking; and they now walked on in silence, side by side.

“Well, why don’t you strike?” cried the prince, impatiently. He had stopped and, turning to his companion: “Strike!” he said. “This is the time or never. There is no one to see you. You can slip out through that little door; the key happens to be hanging on the wall; and good-bye, baron … unseen and unknown! … But, of course, all this was arranged … you brought me here … And you’re hesitating! Why on earth don’t you strike?”

He looked him straight in the eyes. The other was livid, quivering with impotent strength.

“You milksop!” Sernine sneered. “I shall never make anything of you. Shall I tell you the truth? Well, you’re afraid of me. Yes, old chap, you never feel quite sure what may happen to you when you’re face to face with me. You want to act, whereas it’s my acts, my possible acts that govern the situation. No, it’s quite clear that you’re not the man yet to put out my star!”

He had not finished speaking when he felt himself seized round the throat and dragged backward. Some one hiding in the shrubbery, near the little door, had caught him by the head. He saw a hand raised, armed with a knife with a gleaming blade. The hand fell; the point of the knife caught him right in the throat.

At the same moment Altenheim sprang upon him to finish him off; and they rolled over into the flower-borders. It was a matter of twenty or thirty seconds at most. Powerful and experienced wrestler as he was, Altenheim yielded almost immediately, uttering a cry of pain. Sernine rose and ran to the little door, which had just closed upon a dark form. It was too late. He heard the key turn in the lock. He was unable to open it.

“Ah, you scoundrel!” he said. “The day on which I catch you will be the day on which I shed my first blood! That I swear to God! …”

He went back, stooped and picked up the pieces of the knife, which had broken as it struck him.

Altenheim was beginning to move. Sernine asked:

“Well, baron, feeling better? You didn’t know that blow, eh? It’s what I call the direct blow in the solar plexus; that is to say, it snuffs out your vital sun like a candle. It’s clean, quick, painless … and infallible. Whereas a blow with a dagger …? Pooh! A man has only to wear a little steel-wove gorget, as I do, and he can set the whole world at defiance, especially your little pal in black, seeing that he always strikes at the throat, the silly monster! … Here, look at his favorite plaything … smashed to atoms!”

He offered him his hand:

“Come, get up, baron. You shall dine with me. And do please remember the secret of my superiority: an undaunted soul in an unassailable body.”

He went back to the club rooms, reserved a table for two, sat down on a sofa, and while waiting for dinner, soliloquized, under his breath:

“It’s certainly an amusing game, but it’s becoming dangerous. I must get it over … otherwise those beggars will send me to Paradise earlier than I want to go. The nuisance is that I can’t do anything before I find old Steinweg, for, when all is said, old Steinweg is the only interesting factor in the whole business; and my one reason for sticking to the baron is that I keep on hoping to pick up some clue or other. What the devil have they done with him? Altenheim is in daily communication with him: that is beyond a doubt; it is equally beyond a doubt that he is doing his utmost to drag out of him what he knows about the Kesselbach scheme. But where does he see him? Where has he got him shut up? With friends? In his own house, at 29, Villa Dupont?”

He reflected for some time, then lit a cigarette, took three puffs at it and threw it away. This was evidently a signal, for two young men came and sat down beside him. He did not seem to know them, but he conversed with them by stealth. It was the brothers Doudeville, got up that day like men of fashion.

“What is it, governor?”

“Take six of our men, go to 29, Villa Dupont and make your way in.”

“The devil! How?”

“In the name of the law. Are you not detective-inspectors? A search …”

“But we haven’t the right …”

“Take it.”

“And the servants? If they resist?”

“There are only four of them.”

“If they call out?”

“They won’t call out.”

“If Altenheim returns?”

“He won’t return before ten o’clock. I’ll see to it. That gives you two hours and a half, which is more than you require to explore the house from top to bottom. If you find old Steinweg, come and tell me.”

Baron Altenheim came up. Sernine went to meet him:

“Let’s have some dinner, shall we? That little incident in the garden has made me feel hungry. By the way, my dear baron, I have a few bits of advice to give you …”

They sat down to table.

After dinner, Sernine suggested a game of billiards. Altenheim accepted. When the game was over, they went to the baccarat-room. The croupier was just shouting:

“There are fifty louis in the bank. Any bids?”

“A hundred louis,” said Altenheim.

Sernine looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. The Doudevilles had not returned. The search, therefore, had been fruitless.

“Banco,” he said.

Altenheim sat down and dealt the cards:

“I give.”

“No.”

“Seven.”

“Six. I lose,” said Sernine. “Shall I double the stakes?”

“Very well,” said the baron.

He dealt out the cards.

“Eight,” said Sernine.

“Nine,” said the baron, laying his cards down.

Sernine turned on his heels, muttering:

“That costs me three hundred louis, but I don’t mind; it fixes him here.”

Ten minutes later his motor set him down in front of 29, Villa Dupont; and he found the Doudevilles and their men collected in the hall:

“Have you hunted out the old boy?”

“No.”

“Dash it! But he must be somewhere or other. Where are the four servants?”

“Over there, in the pantry, tied up, with the cook as well.”

“Good. I would as soon they did not see me. Go all you others. Jean, stay outside and keep watch: Jacques, show me over the house.”

He quickly ran through the cellar, the ground floor, the first and second floors and the attic. He practically stopped nowhere, knowing that he would not discover in a few minutes what his men had not been able to discover in three hours. But he carefully noted the shape and the arrangement of the rooms, and looked for some little detail which would put him on the scent.

When he had finished, he returned to a bedroom which Doudeville had told him was Altenheim’s, and examined it attentively:

“This will do,” he said, raising a curtain that concealed a dark closet, full of clothes. “From here I can see the whole of the room.”

“But if the baron searches the house?”

“Why should he?”

“He will know that we have been here, through his servants.”

“Yes, but he will never dream that one of us is putting up here for the night. He will think that the attempt failed, that is all, so I shall stay.”