We must turn around and go back."
Toni turned. As he did so Strollo drew a long knife and plunged it again
and again through Toni's body.
* * * * *
Strollo spent that night, under an assumed name, at the Mills Hotel in
Bleecker Street. He had stabbed himself accidentally in the knee and
also in the left hand in the fury of his attack, and when he arose in
the morning the sheets were covered with blood. There was also blood on
his shoes, which had been new, but he took his knife and scraped it off.
He had experienced a strange sort of terrified exaltation the night
before, and in the early light as he crept downstairs and out of the
hotel he could not have told whether he were more glad or afraid. For he
had three hundred dollars in his pocket, more than he had ever seen at
any one time before--as much as a man could save in two whole years. He
would be a king now for a long time. He need not work. He could eat,
drink and play cards and read some books he had heard about. As for
finding him out--never! The police would not even know who Torsielli
was, to say nothing of who had killed him, for he had removed, as he
thought, everything in Toni's pockets.
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