Muller listened very attentively with unfeigned interest.
"But you have made more important inventions than this, haven't
you?" he asked when the other stopped talking. Varna's eyes flashed
and his voice dropped to a tone of mystery as he answered: "Yes
indeed I have. But I did not have time to finish them. For I had
become some one else."
"Some one else?"
"Cardillac," whispered Varna, whose mania was now getting the best
of him again.
"Cardillac? You mean the notorious goldsmith who lived in Paris
200 years ago? Why, he's dead."
Varna's pale lips curled in a superior smile. "Oh, yes--that's
what people think, but it's a mistake. He is still alive--I am
--I have--although of course there isn't much opportunity here--"
Gyuri cleared his throat with a rasping noise.
"What were you saying, friend Cardillac?" asked Muller with a great
show of interest.
"I have done things here that nobody has found out. It gives me
great pleasure to see the authorities so helpless over the riddles
I have given them to solve. Oh, indeed, sir, you would never
imagine how stupid they are here."
"In other words, friend Cardillac, you are too clever for the
authorities here?
"Yes, that's it," said the insane man greatly flattered.
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