My idea was that he, at least, should go with me--to sell my
life as dearly as that--and a sniff would have settled us both.
But no, he must tantalize and torment me; he thought it brandy;
he must take it downstairs to drink to my destruction! Can you
have any pity for a hound like that?"
"Let us go," I at last said, hoarsely, as Raffles finished
speaking in Italian, and his second listener stood open-mouthed.
"We will go," said Raffles, "and we will chance being seen; if
the worst comes to the worst this good chap will prove that I
have been tied up since one o'clock this morning, and the medical
evidence will decide how long those dogs have been dead."
But the worst did not come to the worst, more power to my
unforgotten friend the cabman, who never came forward to say what
manner of men he had driven to Bloomsbury Square at top speed on
the very day upon which the tragedy was discovered there, or
whence he had driven them. To be sure, they had not behaved
like murderers, whereas the evidence at the inquest all went to
show that the defunct Corbucci was little better. His
reputation, which transpired with his identity, was that of a
libertine and a renegade, while the infernal apparatus upstairs
revealed the fiendish arts of the anarchist to boot. The inquiry
resulted eventually in an open verdict, and was chiefly
instrumental in killing such compassion as is usually felt for
the dead who die in their sins.
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