Dr. Géradec bolted the door, came back, sat down at his desk and said, simply:
“We’ll talk about it.”
“I repeat the question,” said Siméon, coming closer. “Are we agreed at a hundred thousand?”
“We are agreed,” said the doctor, “unless any complications appear later.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the figure of a hundred thousand francs forms a suitable basis for discussion, that’s all.”
Siméon hesitated a second. The man struck him as rather greedy. However, he sat down once more; and the doctor at once resumed the conversation:
“Your real name, please.”
“You mustn’t ask me that. I tell you, there are reasons …”
“Then it will be two hundred thousand francs.”
“Eh?” said Siméon, with a start. “I say, that’s a bit steep! I never heard of such a price.”
“You’re not obliged to accept,” replied Géradec, calmly. “We are discussing a bargain. You are free to do as you please.”
“But, look here, once you agree to fix me up a false passport, what can it matter to you whether you know my name or not?”
“It matters a great deal. I run an infinitely greater risk in assisting the escape—for that’s the only word—of a spy than I do in assisting the escape of a respectable man.”
“I’m not a spy.”
“How do I know? Look here, you come to me to propose a shady transaction. You conceal your name and your identity; and you’re in such a hurry to disappear from sight that you’re prepared to pay me a hundred thousand francs to help you. And, in the face of that, you lay claim to being a respectable man! Come, come! It’s absurd! A respectable man does not behave like a burglar or a murderer.”
Old Siméon did not wince. He slowly wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. He was evidently thinking that Géradec was a hardy antagonist and that he would perhaps have done better not to go to him. But, after all, the contract was a conditional one. There would always be time enough to break it off.
“I say, I say!” he said, with an attempt at a laugh. “You are using big words!”
“They’re only words,” said the doctor. “I am stating no hypothesis. I am content to sum up the position and to justify my demands.”
“You’re quite right.”
“Then we’re agreed?”
“Yes. Perhaps, however—and this is the last observation I propose to make—you might let me off more cheaply, considering that I’m a friend of Mme. Mosgranem’s.”
“What do you suggest by that?” asked the doctor.
“Mme. Mosgranem herself told me that you charged her nothing.”
“That’s true, I charged her nothing,” replied the doctor, with a fatuous smile, “but perhaps she presented me with a good deal. Mme. Mosgranem was one of those attractive women whose favors command their own price.”
There was a silence. Old Siméon seemed to feel more and more uncomfortable in his interlocutor’s presence. At last the doctor sighed:
“Poor Mme. Mosgranem!”
“What makes you speak like that?” asked Siméon.
“What! Haven’t you heard?”
“I have had no letters from her since she left.”
“I see. I had one last night; and I was greatly surprised to learn that she was back in France.”
“In France! Mme. Mosgranem!”
“Yes. And she even gave me an appointment for this morning, a very strange appointment.”
“Where?” asked Siméon, with visible concern.
“You’ll never guess. On a barge, yes, called the Nonchalante, moored at the Quai de Passy, alongside Berthou’s Wharf.”
“Is it possible?” said Siméon.
“It’s as I tell you. And do you know how the letter was signed? It was signed Grégoire.”
“Grégoire? A man’s name?” muttered the old man, almost with a groan.
“Yes, a man’s name. Look, I have the letter on me. She tells me that she is leading a very dangerous life, that she distrusts the man with whom her fortunes are bound up and that she would like to ask my advice.”
“Then … then you went?”
“Yes, I was there this morning, while you were ringing up here. Unfortunately …”
“Well?”
“I arrived too late. Grégoire, or rather Mme. Mosgranem, was dead. She had been strangled.”
“So you know nothing more than that?” asked Siméon, who seemed unable to get his words out.
“Nothing more about what?”
“About the man whom she mentioned.”
“Yes, I do, for she told me his name in the letter. He’s a Greek, who calls himself Siméon Diodokis. She even gave me a description of him. I haven’t read it very carefully.”
He unfolded the letter and ran his eyes down the second page, mumbling:
“A broken-down old man. … Passes himself off as mad. … Always goes about in a comforter and a pair of large yellow spectacles. …”
Dr. Géradec ceased reading and looked at Siméon with an air of amazement. Both of them sat for a moment without speaking. Then the doctor said:
“You are Siméon Diodokis.”
The other did not protest. All these incidents were so strangely and, at the same time, so naturally interlinked as to persuade him that lying was useless.
“This alters the situation,” declared the doctor. “The time for trifling is past. It’s a most serious and terribly dangerous matter for me, I can tell you! You’ll have to make it a million.”
“Oh, no!” cried Siméon, excitedly. “Certainly not! Besides, I never touched Mme. Mosgranem. I was myself attacked by the man who strangled her, the same man—a negro called Ya-Bon—who caught me up and took me by the throat.”
“Ya-Bon? Did you say Ya-Bon?”
“Yes, a one-armed Senegalese.”
“And did you two fight?”
“Yes.”
“And did you kill him?”
“Well …”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders with a smile:
“Listen, sir, to a curious coincidence. When I left the barge, I met half-a-dozen wounded soldiers. They spoke to me and said that they were looking for a comrade, this very Ya-Bon, and also for their captain, Captain Belval, and a friend of this officer’s and a lady, the lady they were staying with. All these people had disappeared; and they accused a certain person … wait, they told me his name. … Oh, but this is more and more curious! The man’s name was Siméon Diodokis. It was you they accused! … Isn’t it odd? But, on the other hand, you must confess that all this constitutes
