“As usual.”
“Be quick. Put your revolver in your pocket. What about your lodge? Can you leave it?”
“Five minutes won’t hurt.”
The lodge opened at the back on a small courtyard, which communicated with a long corridor. At the end of this passage was another yard, in which stood a little house consisting of a ground-floor and an attic.
They went in. There was an entrance-hall followed by three rooms, leading one into the other. Only the second room was furnished. The third had a door opening straight on a street that ran parallel with the Rue Guimard.
They stopped in the second room.
“Did you shut the hall-door after you?”
“Yes, M. Siméon.”
“No one saw us come in, I suppose?”
“Not a soul.”
“No one suspects that you’re here?”
“No.”
“Give me your revolver.”
“Here it is.”
“Do you think, if I fired it off, anyone would hear?”
“No, certainly not. Who is there to hear? But …”
“But what?”
“You’re surely not going to fire?”
“Yes, I am.”
“At yourself, M. Siméon, at yourself? Are you going to kill yourself?”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Well, who then?”
“You, of course!” chuckled Siméon.
Pressing the trigger, he blew out the luckless man’s brains. His victim fell in a heap, stone dead. Siméon flung aside the revolver and remained impassive, a little undecided as to his next step. He opened out his fingers, one by one, up to six, apparently counting the six persons of whom he had got rid in a few hours: Grégoire, Coralie, Ya-Bon, Patrice, Don Luis, old Vacherot!
His mouth gave a grin of satisfaction. One more endeavor; and his flight and safety were assured.
For the moment he was incapable of making the endeavor. His head whirled. His arms struck out at space. He fell into a faint, with a gurgle in his throat, his chest crushed under an unbearable weight.
But, at a quarter to ten, with an effort of will, he picked himself up and, mastering himself and disregarding the pain, he went out by the other door of the house.
At ten o’clock, after twice changing his taxi, he arrived at the Boulevard Montmorency, just at the moment when Dr. Géradec was alighting from his car and mounting the steps of the handsome villa in which his private hospital had been installed since the beginning of the war.
XVIII
Siméon’s Last Victim
Dr. Géradec’s hospital had several annexes, each of which served a specific purpose, grouped around it in a fine garden. The villa itself was used for the big operations. The doctor had his consulting-room here also; and it was to this room that Siméon Diodokis was first shown. But, after answering a few questions put to him by a male nurse, Siméon was taken to another room in a separate wing.
Here he was received by the doctor, a man of about sixty, still young in his movements, clean-shaven and wearing a glass screwed into his right eye, which contracted his features into a constant grimace. He was wrapped from the shoulders to the feet in a large white operating-apron.
Siméon explained his case with great difficulty, for he could hardly speak. A footpad had attacked him the night before, taken him by the throat and robbed him, leaving him half-dead in the road.
“You have had time to send for a doctor since,” said Dr. Géradec, fixing him with a glance.
Siméon did not reply; and the doctor added:
“However, it’s nothing much. The fact that you are alive shows that there’s no fracture. It reduces itself therefore to a contraction of the larynx, which we shall easily get rid of by tubing.”
He gave his assistant some instructions. A long aluminum tube was inserted in the patient’s windpipe. The doctor, who had absented himself meanwhile, returned and, after removing the tube, examined the patient, who was already beginning to breathe with greater ease.
“That’s over,” said Dr. Géradec, “and much quicker than I expected. There was evidently in your case an inhibition which caused the throat to shrink. Go home now; and, when you’ve had a rest, you’ll forget all about it.”
Siméon asked what the fee was and paid it. But, as the doctor was seeing him to the door, he stopped and, without further preface, said:
“I am a friend of Mme. Albonin’s.”
The doctor did not seem to understand what he meant.
“Perhaps you don’t recognize the name,” Siméon insisted. “When I tell you, however, that it conceals the identity of Mme. Mosgranem, I have no doubt that we shall be able to arrange something.”
“What about?” asked the doctor, while his face displayed still greater astonishment.
“Come, doctor, there’s no need to be on your guard. We are alone. You have soundproof, double doors. Sit down and let’s talk.”
He took a chair. The doctor sat down opposite him, looking more and more surprised. And Siméon proceeded with his statement:
“I am a Greek subject. Greece is a neutral; indeed, I may say, a friendly country; and I can easily obtain a passport and leave France. But, for personal reasons, I want the passport made out not in my own name but in some other, which you and I will decide upon together and which will enable me, with your assistance, to go away without any danger.”
The doctor rose to his feet indignantly.
Siméon persisted:
“Oh, please don’t be theatrical! It’s a question of price, is it not? My mind is made up. How much do you want?”
The doctor pointed to the door.
Siméon raised no protest. He put on his hat. But, on reaching the door, he said:
“Twenty thousand francs? Is that enough?”
“Do you want me to ring?” asked the doctor, “and have you turned out?”
Siméon laughed and quietly, with a pause after each figure:
“Thirty thousand?” he asked. “Forty? … Fifty? … Oh, I see, we’re playing a great game, we want a round sum. … All right. Only, you know, everything must be included in the price we settle. You must not only fix me up a passport so genuine that it can’t be disputed, but you must guarantee me the means of leaving France, as you did for Mme. Mosgranem, on terms not half so handsome, by Jove! However, I’m
