“Don’t you understand that it would have been impossible for me to have gotten rid of the body of Larsan in the daylight? A whole day was necessary to prepare for the disappearance by night. But what a day we had with the death of Bernier! The arrival of the gendarmes only served to simplify the affair. I waited until I knew that they were gone. The first rifle shot that you heard when we were in the Square Tower was to inform me that the last gendarme had quitted the tavern at Albo, at the Point of Garibaldi; the second told me that the customs officers had gone into their cabins and were at supper and that _the sea was free_!” “Tell me, Rouletabille,” I said, looking into his clear eyes. “When you left Tullio’s boat at the end of the gallery of the passageway, for the carrying out of your plans, did you know already _what that boat would carry away on the morrow_?” Rouletabille bowed his head. “No,” he answered, sadly and slowly. “No--do not think that, Sainclair! I did not expect that it would carry away a corpse. After all--he was my father! _I believed that the boat would carry the ‘body too many’ to the madhouse!_ You understand, Sainclair? I would only have condemned him to prison--forever. But he killed himself. It is God who did it. May God forgive him!” We never spoke again of that night. At Laroche I was anxious for a hot supper, but Rouletabille refused to join me. He bought all the Paris papers and buried himself in the events of the day. The journals were filled with news from Russia. A great conspiracy against the Czar had been discovered at St. Petersburg. The facts related were so wonderful that they were almost incredible. I unfolded the Epoch and I read in great black letters on the first column of the first page: “DEPARTURE OF JOSEPH ROULETABILLE FOR RUSSIA.” And underneath: “THE CZAR IMPLORES HIS AID.” I passed the paper to Rouletabille, who shrugged his shoulders and said: “That’s a nice thing! Without even asking my opinion! What does that fool of an editor think that I am going to do out there? I’m not interested in the Czar. Let him and his Nihilists settle their squabbles for themselves! It is their affair, not mine! To Russia? I shall apply for a vacation--that’s what I’ll do! I need rest. I’ll tell you, Sainclair, you and I will go somewhere together. We’ll take a nice, quiet rest----” “Not if I know it!” I cried hastily. “Thanks very much but I have had enough of your kind of ‘nice, quiet rest’! I have a wild desire to work!” “Just as you like. I won’t insist.” As we drew nearer Paris, he bathed his hands and face, combed his hair and turned out his pockets. And in one of them he was surprised to find a red envelope which had come there without anyone knowing how. “What nonsense is this?” he remarked carelessly, tearing it open.