d not been for the fiendish noise which, he began to feel, was
being played merely for his torture.

He put on his hat and stumbled down-stairs, out into the night. Crossing
the street, he went at once to Bollo's Wine Shop. The hunchback was
sitting on a garbage-can, almost at the entrance. At the sight of this
misshapen figure, the irritating memory of the Italian and his
impossible music recurred to Suvaroff. A sudden sinister cruelty came
over him; he felt a wanton ruthlessness that the sight of ugliness
sometimes engenders in natures sensitive to beauty. He went up to the
hunchback and looked searchingly into the man's face. It was a strangely
handsome face, and its incongruity struck Suvaroff. Had Nature been
weary, or merely in a satirical mood, when she fashioned such a thing of
horror?--for Suvaroff found that the handsome face seemed even more
horrible than the twisted body, so sharp and violent was the contrast.

The hunchback returned Suvaroff's stare with almost insulting
indifference, but there was something in the look that quickened the
beating of Suvaroff's heart.

"You are waiting here," began Suvaroff, "for an Italian who lodges
across the street. Would you like me to tell you where he may be found?"

The hunchback shrugged. "It does not matter in the slightest, one way or
another. If you tell me where he lodges, the inevitable will happen more
quickly than if I sat and waited for the rat to come out of his hole.
Waiting has its own peculiar interest. If you have ever waited, as I
wait now, you know the joy that a cat feels--expectation is two-thirds
of any game."

Suvaroff shuddered. He had an impulse to walk away, but the eyes of the
other burned with a strange fascination.

"Nevertheless," said Suvaroff, "I shall tell--"

The hunchback waved him to silence. "Do whatever you wish, my friend,
but remember, if you do tell me this thing, you and I will be forever
bound by a tie that it will be impossible to break. With me it does not
matter, but you are a young man, and all your life you will drag a
secret about like a dead thing chained to your wrist. I am Flavio
Minetti, and I kill every one who laughs at me! This Italian of whom you
speak has laughed at me. I may wait a week--a month. It will be the
same. No one has yet escaped me."

An exquisite fear began to move Suvaroff. "Nevertheless," he repeated
again, "I shall tell you where he lodges. You will find him upon the
third landing of the