He held out his hand and said:
“Thank you!”
“Tut!” said Don Luis, playfully. “No thanks! Just a good handshake, that’s all. And I’m a man you can shake hands with, captain, believe me. I may have a few peccadilloes on my conscience, but on the other hand I have committed a certain number of good actions which should win me the esteem of decent folk … beginning with my own. And so …”
He interrupted himself again, seemed to reflect and, taking Patrice by a button of his jacket, said:
“Don’t move. We are being watched.”
“By whom?”
“Someone on the quay, right at the end of the garden. The wall is not high. There’s a grating on the top of it. They’re looking through the bars and trying to see us.”
“How do you know? You have your back turned to the quay; and then there are the trees.”
“Listen.”
“I don’t hear anything out of the way.”
“Yes, the sound of an engine … the engine of a stopping car. Now what would a car want to stop here for, on the quay, opposite a wall with no house near it?”
“Then who do you think it is?”
“Why, old Siméon, of course!”
“Old Siméon!”
“Certainly. He’s looking to see whether I’ve really saved the two of you.”
“Then he’s not mad?”
“Mad? No more mad than you or I!”
“And yet …”
“What you mean is that Siméon used to protect you; that his object was to bring you two together; that he sent you the key of the garden-door; and so on and so on.”
“Do you know all that?”
“Well, of course! If not, how could I have rescued you?”
“But,” said Patrice, anxiously, “suppose the scoundrel returns to the attack. Ought we not to take some precautions? Let’s go back to the lodge: Coralie is all alone.”
“There’s no danger.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m here.”
Patrice was more astounded than ever:
“Then Siméon knows you?” he asked. “He knows that you are here?”
“Yes, thanks to a letter which I wrote you under cover to Ya-Bon and which he intercepted. I told you that I was coming; and he hurried to get to work. Only, as my habit is on these occasions, I hastened on my arrival by a few hours, so that I caught him in the act.”
“At that moment you did not know he was the enemy; you knew nothing?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Was it this morning?”
“No, this afternoon, at a quarter to two.”
Patrice took out his watch:
“And it’s now four. So in two hours …”
“Not that. I’ve been here an hour.”
“Did you find out from Ya-Bon?”
“Do you think I’ve no better use for my time? Ya-Bon simply told me that you were not there, which was enough to astonish me.”
“After that?”
“I looked to see where you were.”
“How?”
“I first searched your room and, doing so in my own thorough fashion, ended by discovering that there was a crack at the back of your roll-top desk and that this crack faced a hole in the wall of the next room. I was able therefore to pull out the book in which you kept your diary and acquaint myself with what was going on. This, moreover, was how Siméon became aware of your least intentions. This was how he knew of your plan to come here, on a pilgrimage, on the fourteenth of April. This was how, last night, seeing you write, he preferred, before attacking you, to know what you were writing. Knowing it and learning, from your own words, that you were on your guard, he refrained. You see how simple it all is. If M. Masseron had grown uneasy at your absence, he would have been just as successful. Only he would have been successful tomorrow.”
“That is to say, too late.”
“Yes, too late. This really isn’t his business, however, nor that of the police. So I would rather that they didn’t meddle with it. I asked your wounded soldiers to keep silent about anything that may strike them as queer. Therefore, if M. Masseron comes today, he will think that everything is in order. Well, having satisfied my mind in this respect and possessing the necessary information from your diary, I took Ya-Bon with me and walked across the lane and into the garden.”
“Was the door open?”
“No, but Siméon happened to be coming out at that moment. Bad luck for him, wasn’t it? I took advantage of it boldly. I put my hand on the latch and we went in, without his daring to protest. He certainly knew who I was.”
“But you didn’t know at that time that he was the enemy?”
“I didn’t know? And what about your diary?”
“I had no notion …”
“But, captain, every page is an indictment of the man. There’s not an incident in which he did not take part, not a crime which he did not prepare.”
“In that case you should have collared him.”
“And if I had? What good would it have done me? Should I have compelled him to speak? No, I shall hold him tightest by leaving him his liberty. That will give him rope, you know. You see already he’s prowling round the house instead of clearing out. Besides, I had something better to do: I had first to rescue you two … if there was still time. Ya-Bon and I therefore rushed to the door of the lodge. It was open; but the other, the door of the studio, was locked and bolted. I drew the bolts; and to force the lock was, for me, child’s play. Then the smell of gas was enough to tell me what had happened, Siméon must have fitted an old meter to some outside pipe, probably the one which supplied the lamps on the lane, and he was suffocating you. All that remained for us to do was to fetch the two
