"What do you think of the Prince's position?"

"His financial position?" asked Marechal.

"Oh, no! I know all about that! I mean his relation to Madame
Desvarennes."

"Zounds! If we were in Venice in the days of the Aqua-Toffana, the
sbirri and the bravi--"

"What rubbish!" interrupted Cayrol, shrugging his shoulders.

"Let me continue," said the secretary, "and you can shrug your shoulders
afterward if you like. If we had been in Venice, knowing Madame
Desvarennes as I do, it would not have been surprising to me to have had
Master Serge found at the bottom of the canal some fine morning."

"You are not in earnest," muttered the banker.

"Much more so than you think. Only you know we live in the nineteenth
century, and we cannot make Providence interpose in the form of a dagger
or poison so easily as in former days. Arsenic and verdigris are
sometimes used, but it does not answer. Scientific people have had the
meanness to invent tests by which poison can be detected even when there
is none."

"You are making fun of me," said Cayrol, laughing.

"I! No. Come, do you wish to do a good stroke of business? Find a man