It was time I
grew wary of theories.
I entered the store, and spent ten minutes looking at some neckties.
When I came out again, Martigny was just getting down from a
bootblack's chair across the street. His back was toward me, and I
watched him get out his little purse and drop a dime into the
bootblack's hand. I went on up Broadway, loitering sometimes,
sometimes walking straight ahead; always, away behind me, lost in the
crowd, was my pursuer. It could no longer be doubted. He was really
following me, though he did it so adroitly, with such consummate
cunning, that I should never have seen him, never have suspected him,
but for that fortunate intuition at the start.
A hundred plans flashed through my brain. I had this advantage: he
could not know that I suspected him. If I could only overmaster him in
cunning, wrest his secret from him--and then, as I remembered the
strong face, the piercing eyes, the perfect self-control, I realized
how little possible it was that I could accomplish this. He was my
superior in diplomacy and deceit; he would not pause, now, at any
means to assure the success of his plot.
Yes, I could doubt no longer that there was a plot, whose depths I
had not before even suspected; and I drew back from the thought with a
little shiver. What was the plot? What intricate, dreadful crime was
this which he was planning? The murder of the father, then, had been
only the first step.
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