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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
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