Kitabı oku: «The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood», sayfa 18
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM THE DEAD
We have seen how the news of Stanislas McKay's capture by the Russians was communicated to his uncle, Mr. Faulks.
Next day the brief telegram announcing it was published in the morning papers, with many strong comments. Although some blamed the young officer for his rashness, and others held Lord Raglan directly responsible for his loss, all agreed in execrating the vindictive cruelty of the uncompromising foe.
General sympathy was expressed for Mr. McKay; the most august person in the land sent a message of condolence to his mother through Lord Essendine, who added a few kindly words on his own account.
"What curse lies heavy on our line? It seems fatal to come within reach of heirship to the family-honours. Ere long there will be no Wilders left, and the title of Essendine will become extinct," wrote the old peer to Mrs. McKay. "Your boy, a fine, fearless young fellow, whom I neglected too long and who deserved a nobler fate, is the latest victim. Pray Heaven he may yet escape! I will strive hard to help him in his present dire peril."
Lord Essendine was as good as his word. He had great influence, political and diplomatic: great friends in high place at every court in Europe. Among others, the Russian ambassador at Vienna was under personal obligations to him of long standing, and did not hesitate when called upon to acknowledge the debt.
Telegrams came and went from London to Vienna, from Vienna to St. Petersburg, backwards and forwards day after day, yet nothing was effected by Lord Essendine's anxious, energetic advocacy. The Czar himself was appealed to, but the Autocrat of All the Russias would not deign to intervene. He was inexorable. The law military must take its course. Stanislas McKay was a traitor and the son of a traitor; he had been actually taken red-handed in a new and still deeper treachery, and he must suffer for his crime.
At the end of the first fortnight McKay's relations and friends in England had almost abandoned hope. This was what Mr. Faulks told Mrs. Wilders, who called every day two or three times, always in the deepest distress.
"Poor boy! poor boy!" she said, wringing her hands. "To be cut off like this! It is too terrible! And nothing—you are sure nothing can be done to save him?"
"Lord Essendine is making the most strenuous efforts; so are we. Even Sir Humphrey Fothergill has been most kind; and the War Minister has repeatedly telegraphed to Lord Raglan to leave no stone unturned."
"And all without effect? It is most sad!" She would have feigned the same excessive grief with the Essendine lawyers, to whom she also paid several visits, but the senior partner's cold eye and cynical smile checked her heroics.
"You will not be the loser by poor McKay's removal," he said, with brutal frankness, one day when she had rather overdone her part.
"As if I thought of that!" she replied, with supreme indignation.
"It is impossible for you not to think of it, my dear madam. It would not be human nature. Why shouldn't you? Mr. McKay was no relation."
"He was my dear dead husband's devoted friend. Nursed him after his wound—"
"I remember to have heard that, and indeed everything that is good, of Mr. McKay. I feel sure he would have made an excellent Earl of Essendine; more's the pity."
"I trust my son, if he inherits, will worthily maintain the credit of the house."
"So do I, my dear madam," said old Mr. Burt, with a bow that made the speech a less doubtful compliment.
"When will it be settled? Why do they hesitate? Why delay?" she said to herself passionately, as she went homewards to Thistle Grove. Her friend Mr. Hobson was there, waiting for her; and she repeated the question with a fierce anxiety that proved how closely it concerned her.
"How impatient you grow! Like every woman. Everything must be done at once."
"I am not safe yet. I begin to doubt."
"Can't you trust me? I have assured you it will end as you wish. When have I disappointed you, Lady Lydstone?"
She started at the sound of this name, once familiar, but surrounded now by memories at once painful and terrible.
"It is the rule in your English peerage that when a son becomes a great peer, and the mother is only a commoner, to give her one of the titles. Your Queen does it by prerogative."
"I might have been Lady Lydstone by right, if I had waited," she said slowly.
"And you repent it? Bah! it is too late. Be satisfied. You will be rich, a great lady, respected—"
She made a gesture of dissent.
"Yes; respected. Great ladies always are. You can marry again—whom you please; me, for instance—"
Again the gesture: dissent mixed with unmistakable disgust.
"You are not too flattering, Cyprienne. Do not presume on my good-nature, and remember—"
"What, pray?"
"What you owe me. I am entitled to claim my reward. You must repay me some day."
"By marrying you?"
Her voice, as usual, began to tremble when she found herself in antagonism with this man.
"If that be the price I ask. Why not? We ought to be happy together. We have so much in common, so many secrets—"
"Enough of this!" she said shortly, but not bravely.
"And to be Lady Lydstone's husband would give me a certain status—a sufficient income. I could help you to educate the boy, whom, by-the-way, I have never seen. Yes; the notion pleases me. I will be your second—I beg your pardon, your third husband, probably your last."
"I must beg of you, Hippolyte, to be careful; I hear some one coming."
It was the Swiss butler, who entered rather timidly to say a gentleman had called on important business.
"What business? Surely you have not admitted him? If so, you shall leave my service. You know it is contrary to my express orders."
"He said you would see him, madam; that he came on the part of a friend, a very ancient friend, whose name I had but to tell you—"
"What name? Go on, François."
"The name—it is difficult. Ru—" he spoke very slowly, struggling with the strangeness of the sounds. "Ru—pert—Gas—"
"Who can this be?" Mrs. Wilders had turned very white and now beckoned Hobson to step out into the garden. "Is it a message from beyond the grave?"
"Coward!" cried her companion contemptuously. "The Seine seldom surrenders its prey. Rupert Gascoigne is dead—drowned, as you know, fourteen years ago."
"But this visitor knew him—he knows of my connection with him. Else why come in his name? Oh, Hippolyte, I tremble! Help me. Support me in my interview with this strange man."
"No; it would not be safe. If he knew Rupert Gascoigne, he may, too, have known Ledantec. I will not meet him."
"Who is the coward now?"
"I do not choose to run unnecessary risks. But I will help you—to this extent. See the man, if you must see him, in the double drawing-room. I will be within call."
"And earshot? I understand."
"Well, what can I overhear—about you, at least—that I do not know already? In any case I could help you."
It was so arranged. Mrs. Wilders bade her servant introduce the stranger, and presently joined him in the adjoining room.
"Mr. Hyde," she began, composedly and very stiffly, "may I inquire the meaning of this intrusion? You are a perfect stranger—"
"Look well at me, Cyprienne Vergette. Have years so changed me—?"
"Rupert? Impossible!" she half-shrieked. "Rupert is dead. He died—was drowned—when—"
"You deserted him, and left him, you and your vile partner, falsely accused of a foul crime."
"I cannot—will not believe it. You are an impostor; you have assumed a dead man's name."
"My identity is easily proved, Cyprienne Vergette, and the relation in which I stand to you."
"What brings you here to vex me, after all these years? I always hated you. I left you—Why cannot you leave me in peace?"
"God knows I had no wish to see or speak to you again. The world was wide enough for us both. We should have remained for ever apart, but for your latest and foulest crime."
"What false, lying charge is this you would trump up against me?"
"The murder of my dearest friend and comrade. Murder twice attempted. The first failed; the second, I fear, will prove fatal. If so, look to yourself, madam."
"What can you do?" she said, impudently, having regained much of her old effrontery.
"Prevent you from reaping the fruits of your iniquity. You know you were never General Wilders's wife; you were always mine. Worse luck!"
"You cannot prove it. You are dead. You dare not reappear."
"Wait and see," he replied, very coolly.
"You have no proofs, I say, of the marriage."
"They are safe at the Mairie, in Paris. French archives are carefully kept. I have only to ask for a certificate; it's easy enough."
"For any one who could go there. But how will you dare to show yourself in Paris? You are proscribed; a price is set on your head. Your life would be forfeited."
"I will risk all that, and more, to ruin your wicked game."
"Do so at your peril."
"You threaten me, vile wretch? Be careful. The measure of your iniquity is nearly full. Punishment must soon overtake you; your misdeeds are well known; your complicity with—"
Why should he tell her? Why warn her of the net that was closing round her, and thus help her to escape from the toils?
But she had caught at his words.
"Complicity?" she repeated, anxiously. "With whom?"
"No matter. Only look to yourself. It is war, war to the knife, unquenchable war between us, remember that."
And with these words he left the house.
Although she had shown a bold front, Mrs. Wilders, as we shall still call her, was greatly agitated by this stormy scene, and it was with a blanched cheek and faltering step that she sought her confederate in the next room.
Mr. Hobson was gone.
"Coward! he has easily taken alarm. To desert me at the moment that I most need advice and help!"
But she did her friend injustice, as a letter that came from him in the course of a few hours fully proved.
"I heard enough," wrote Mr. Hobson, "to satisfy me that the devil is unchained and means mischief. I never thought to see R. G. again. We must watch him now closely, and know all his movements. If he goes to Paris, as I heard him threaten, he will give himself into our hands. I shall follow, in spite of the risks I run. One word of warning to the Prefecture will put the police on his track. Arrest, removal to Mazas, Cayenne, or by the guillotine—what matter which?—will be his inevitable fate. The French law is implacable. His dossier (criminal biography) is in the hands of the authorities, and will be easily produced. There must be numbers of people still living in Paris who could identify him at once, in spite of his beard and bronzed face. I can, if need be, although I would rather not make myself too prominent just now. Be tranquil; he will not be able to injure us. It is his own doom that he is preparing."
CHAPTER IX.
IN PARIS
Years had passed since Hyde—he was Rupert Gascoigne then—had last been in Paris. The memory of that last sojourn and the horrors of it still clung to him—his arrest, unjust trial, escape. His bold leap into the swift Seine, his rescue by a passing river steamer, on which, thanks to a plausible tale, in which he explained away the slight flesh-wound he had received from the gendarme's pistol, he found employment as a stoker, and so got to Rouen, thence to Havre and the sea.
Willingly he would never have returned to the place where he had so nearly fallen a victim. But he was impelled by a stern sense of duty; he came now as an avenging spirit to unmask and punish those who had plotted against him and his friend—unscrupulous miscreants who were a curse to the world.
He took up his quarters in a large new hotel upon the Boulevards.
Paris had changed greatly in these years. The Second Empire, with its swarm of hastily-enriched adventurers, had already done much to beautify and improve the city. Life was more than ever gay in this the chief home of pleasure-seekers. Luxury of the showiest kind everywhere in the ascendant; smart equipages and gaily-dressed crowds, the shop-fronts glittering with artistic treasures, everyone outwardly happy, and leading a careless, joyous existence.
Englishmen, officers especially, were just now welcome guests in Paris. Mr. Hyde, of the Royal Picts, as he entered himself upon the hotel register, with his soldierly air, his Crimean beard, and his arm in a sling, attracted general attention. He was treated with extraordinary politeness everywhere by the most polite people in the world. When he asked a question a dozen answers were ready for him—a dozen officious friends were prepared to escort him anywhere.
But Rupert Hyde wanted no one to teach him his way about Paris. Within an hour of his arrival, after he had hastily changed the garments he had worn on the night journey, had sallied forth, and, entering the long Rue Lafayette, made straight to the headquarters of the 21st arrondissement. Urgent business of a public nature had brought him to Paris, but this was a private matter which he desired to dispose of before he attended to anything else.
The place he sought was easily found. It was a plain gateway of yellowish-white stone, over which hung a brand-new tricolour from a flag-staff fixed at an angle, and on either side a striped sentry-box containing a Garde de Paris.
The gateway led into a courtyard, in which were half-a-dozen loungers, clustered chiefly around the entrance to a handsome flight of stone steps within the building.
Just within this second entrance was a functionary, half beadle, half hall-porter, wearing a low-crowned cocked hat and a suit of bright blue cloth plentifully adorned with buttons, to whom Hyde addressed himself.
"The office of M. the Mayor, if you please."
"Upstairs; take the first turn to the right, and then—"
"But surely I know that voice!" said some one behind Hyde, who had turned round quickly.
"What, you!" went on the speaker; "my excellent English comrade—here in Paris! Oh, joyful surprise!"
"Is it you? M. Anatole Belhomme, of the Voltigeurs? You have left the Crimea? Is Sebastopol taken? the Russians all massacred, then?"
"It is I who was massacred—almost. I received a ball, here in my leg, and was invalided last month. But you also have suffered, comrade." And Anatole pointed to Hyde's arm in a sling.
"Nothing much. Only the kick of a horse; it does not prevent me moving about, as you see."
"But what brings you to Paris, my good friend?"
"I am seeking some family documents—to substantiate an inheritance. They are here in the archives of the Mairie."
"How? You were seeking the office of M. the Mayor? You?" And M. Anatole proceeded to scrutinise Hyde slowly and minutely from head to foot. "You, a veteran with your arm in a sling, and that brown beard—brown mixed with grey. It is strange—most strange."
"Well, comrade," replied Hyde, laughing a little uneasily, "you ought to know me again."
"Lose no time, friend, in getting what you want from the Mairie. Come: I will go with you. Come: you may be prevented if you delay."
These words aroused Hyde's suspicions. Had Cyprienne warned the French police to be on the look-out for him?
"But, Anatole, explain. Why do you lay such stress on this?" he asked.
"Do as I tell you—first, the papers. I will explain by-and-by."
There was no mistaking Anatole, and Hyde accordingly hastened upstairs. Anatole indicated the door of an antechamber, which Hyde entered alone. It was a large, bare room, with a long counter—inside were a couple of desks, and at them sat several clerks—small people wielding a very brief authority—who looked contemptuously at him over their ledgers, and allowed him to stand there waiting without the slightest acknowledgment of his existence for nearly a quarter of an hour.
"I have come for a certificated extract from the registers of a civil marriage contracted here on the 27th April, 184—" he said, at length, in a loud, indignant voice.
The inquiry had the effect of an electrical shock. Two clerks at once jumped from their stools; one went into an inner room, the other came to the counter where Hyde stood.
"Your name?" he asked, abruptly. "Your papers, domicile, place of birth, age. The names of the parties to the contract of marriage."
Hyde replied without hesitation, producing his passport, a new one made out in the name of Hyde, describing his appearance, and setting forth his condition as an officer in Her Britannic Majesty's Regiment of Royal Picts.
While he was thus engaged, an elderly, portly personage, wearing a tricolour sash which was just visible under his waistcoat, came out from the inner room, and, taking up the passport, looked at it, and then at Hyde.
"Is that your name? Yes? It is different," he went on, audibly, but to himself, "although the description tallies. You are an English officer, domiciled at the Hôtel Impérial, Boulevard de la Madeleine. I do not quite understand."
"Surely it is only a simple matter!" pleaded Hyde. "Monsieur, I seek a marriage certificate."
"For what purpose?"
"As a claim for an inheritance."
"Nothing more, eh!" said the Mayor, suspiciously. "Have you any one, any friend, who will answer for you, here?"
"No one nearer than the British Embassy, except—to be sure—" he suddenly thought of Anatole, who still waited outside, and who came in at the summons of his friend.
"Oh, you are with Monsieur?" The official's face brightened the moment he saw Anatole. "It is all right, then. Give the gentleman the certificate. This friend"—he laid the slightest stress on the word—"will be answerable for him, of course."
"Now, Anatole, tell me what all this means," said Hyde, as he left the Mairie with the document he deemed of so much importance in his pocket.
"Not here," said the Frenchman, looking over his shoulder, nervously. "Let us go somewhere out of sight."
"The nearest wine-shop—I have not breakfasted yet, have you? A bottle of red seal would suit you, I dare say," said Hyde, remembering Anatole's little weakness.
"It is not to be refused. I am with you, comrade. At the sign of the 'Pinched Nose' we shall find the best of everything," replied Anatole, heartily, and the pair passed into the street.
It was barely a dozen yards to the wine-shop, and they walked there arm-in-arm in boisterous good-fellowship, elbowing their way through the crowd in a manner that was not exactly popular.
"Take care, imbecile!" cried one hulking fellow whom Anatole had shouldered off the path.
"Make room, then," replied our friend, rudely.
"Would you dare—" began the other, in a menacing voice, adding some words in a lower tone.
"Excuse. I was in the wrong," said Anatole, suddenly humbled.
"You are right to avoid a quarrel," remarked Hyde, when they were seated at table. He had been quietly amused at his companion's easy surrender.
"I could have eaten him raw. But why should I? He is, perhaps, a father of a family—the support of a widowed mother: if I had destroyed him they might have come to want. No; let him go."
"All the same, he does not seem inclined to go. There he is, still lurking about the front of the shop."
"Truly? Where?" asked Anatole, in evident perturbation. "Bah! we will tire him of that. By the time we have finished a second bottle—"
"Or a third, if you will!" cried Hyde, cheerfully.
They had their breakfast—the most savoury dishes; ham and sour crout, tripe after the mode of Caen, rich ripe Roquefort cheese, and had disposed of three bottles of a rather rough but potent red wine, before Anatole would speak on any but the most common-place topics. The Crimea, the dreadful winter, the punishment administered to their common enemy, occupied him exclusively.
But with the fourth bottle he became more communicative.
"You owe a long candle to your saint for your luck to-day in meeting me," he said, with a slight hiccup.
"Ah! how so?"
"Had not I been there to give you protection you would now be under lock and key in the depôt of the Prefecture."
Hyde, in spite of himself, shuddered as he thought of his last detention in that unsavoury prison.
"What, then, have you done, my English friend?" went on Anatole, with drunken solemnity. "Why should the police seek your arrest?"
"But do they? I cannot believe it."
"It is as I tell you. I myself am in the 'cuisine' (the Prefecture). Since my return from the war my illustrious services have been rewarded by an appointment of great trust."
"In other words, you are now a police-agent, and you were set to watch for some one like me."
"Why not you?" asked Anatole, trying, but in vain, to fix him with his watery eyes. "In any case," he went on, "I wish to serve a comrade—at risk to myself, perhaps."
"You shall not suffer for it, never fear, in the long run. Count always upon me."
"They may say that I have betrayed my trust; that I put friendship before duty. That has always been my error; I have too soft a heart."
Anatole now began to cry with emotion at his own chivalrous self-sacrifice, which changed quickly into bravado as he cried, striking the table noisily—
"Who cares? I would save you from the Prefect himself."
At this moment the big man who had been watching at the window returned, accompanied by two others. He walked straight towards the door of the wine-shop.
"Sacré bleu! le patron (chief). You are lost! Quick! take me by the throat."
Hyde jumped to his feet and promptly obeyed the curious command.
"Now struggle; throw me to the ground, bolt through the back door," whispered Anatole, hastily.
All which Hyde executed promptly and punctiliously. Anatole suffered him to do as he pleased, and Hyde escaped through the back entrance just as the other policemen rushed in at the front.
"After him! Run! Fifty francs to whoever stops him!"
But Hyde had the heels of them. He ran out and through a little courtyard at the back communicating with the street. There he found a fiacre, into which he jumped, shouting to the cabman—
"Drive on straight ahead! A napoleon for yourself."
In this way he distanced his pursuers, and half-an-hour later regained his hotel by a long detour.
Rather agitated and exhausted by the events of the morning, Hyde went upstairs to his own room to rest and review his situation.
"It is quite evident," he said to himself, "that Cyprienne has tried to turn the tables on me. I was too open with her. It was incautious of me to show my hand so soon. Of course the police have been set upon me—the accused and still unjudged perpetrator of the crime in Tinplate Street—by her. But has she acted alone in this?
"I doubt it. I doubt whether she would have come to Paris with that express purpose, or whether the police would have listened to her if she had.
"But who assisted her? Some one from whom she has no secrets. Were it not that such a woman is likely to have set up the closest relations with other miscreants in these past years, I should say that her agent and accomplice was Ledantec. Ledantec is still alive; I know that, for I saw him myself on the field of the Alma, rifling the dead.
"Ledantec! We have an old score to settle, he and I. What if he should be mixed up in this business that brings me to Paris? It is quite likely. That would explain his presence in the Crimea, which hitherto has seemed so strange. I never could believe that so daring and unscrupulous a villain had degenerated into a camp-follower, hungry for plunder gained in the basest way. It could not have been merely to prey upon the dead that he followed in the wake of our army. Far more likely that he was a secret agent of the enemy. If so then, so still, most probably. What luck if these damaging clues that I hold should lead me also to him!
"But it is evident that I shall do very little if I continue to go about as Rupert Hyde. The police are on the alert: my movements would soon be interfered with, and, although I have no fear now of being unable to prove my innocence, arrest and detention of any kind might altogether spoil my game.
"I must assume some disguise, and to protect myself and my case I will do so with the full knowledge of the Embassy. It will do if I go there within an hour. By this evening at latest the police will certainly be here after Rupert Hyde."
It must be mentioned here that the police of Paris are supposed to be acquainted with the names of all visitors residing in the city. The rule may be occasionally relaxed, as now, but under the despotism of Napoleon III. it was enforced with a rigorous exactitude.
Hyde had been barely half-a-dozen hours in Paris, but already his name was inscribed upon the hotel-register awaiting the inspection of the police, who would undoubtedly call that same day to note all new arrivals.
Before starting for the Embassy, Hyde sat down and wrote a couple of rather lengthy letters, both for England, which he addressed, and himself posted at the corner of the Rue Royale.
Thence he went on, down the Faubourg St. Honoré, not many hundred yards, and soon passed under the gateway ornamented with the arms of Great Britain, and stood upon what, by international agreement, was deemed a strip of British soil.
He saw an attaché, to whom he quickly explained himself.
"You wish to pursue the investigation yourself, I gather? Is it worth while running such a risk? Why not hand over the whole business to the Prefecture? I believe they have already put a watch upon the persons suspected."
"I have no confidence in their doing it as surely as I would myself."
Hyde, it will be understood, had his own reasons for not wishing to present himself at the Prefecture.
"You propose to assume a disguise? As you please; but how can we help you?"
"By giving me papers in exchange for my passport, which you can hold, and by sending after me if I do not reappear within two or three days."
"You anticipate trouble, then; danger, perhaps."
"Not necessarily, but it is as well to take precautions."
"Is there anything else?"
"Yes; I should like to bring my disguise and put it on here. In the porter's lodge, a back office—anywhere."
The attaché promised to get the ambassador's permission, which was accorded in due course, and that same afternoon Hyde entered the Embassy a well-dressed English gentleman, and came out an evil-looking ruffian, wearing the blue blouse and high silk cap of the working classes. One sleeve of the blouse hung loose across his chest, as though he had lost his arm, but his injured limb was safe underneath the garment. His beard was trimmed close, and on either side of his forehead were two great curls, plastered flat on the temple, after the fashion so popular with French roughs.
In this attire he plunged into the lowest depths of the city.
Amongst the papers seized at the Maltese baker's in Kadikoi were several that gave an address in Paris. This place was referred to constantly as the headquarters of the organisation which supplied the Russian enemy with intelligence, and at which a certain mysterious person—the leading spirit evidently of the whole nefarious company—was to be found.
"I'll find out all about him and his confederates before I'm many hours older," said Hyde, confidently, as he presented himself at the porter's lodge of a tall, six-storied house, of mean and forbidding aspect, close to the Faubourg St. Martin. It was let out in small lodgings to tenants as decayed and disreputable as their domicile.
"M. Sabatier?" asked Hyde, boldly, of the porter.
"On the fifth floor, the third door to the right," was the reply.
Hyde mounted the stairs and knocked at the door indicated.
"Well?" asked an old woman who opened it.
"The patron—is he here? I must speak to him."
"Who are you? What brings you?" The old woman still held the door ajar, and denied him admission.
"I have news from the Crimea—important news—from the Maltese."
"Joe?" asked the old woman, still suspicious.
Hyde nodded, and said sharply—
"Be quick! The patron must know at once. You will have to answer for this delay."
"He is absent—come again to-morrow," replied the old woman, sulkily.
"It will be worse for him—for all of us—if he does not see me at once."
"I tell you he is absent. You must come again;" and with that the woman shut the door in his face.
What was Hyde to do now? Watch outside? That would hardly be safe. The police, he knew, were on the look-out already, and they would be suspicious of any one engaged in the same game.
There was nothing for it but to take the old woman's reply for truth and wait till the following day. Hyde knew his Paris well enough to find a third-class hotel or lodging-house suitable for such a man as he now seemed, and here, after wandering through the streets for hours, dining at a low restaurant and visiting the gallery of a theatre, he sought and easily obtained a bed.
Next day he returned to the Faubourg St. Martin and was met with the same answer. The patron was still absent.
Hyde was beginning to despair; but he resolved to wait one more day, intending, if still unsuccessful, to surrender the business to other hands.
But on the third day he was admitted.
"The patron will see you," said the old woman, as she led him into a small but well-lighted room communicating with another, into which she passed, locking the door behind her.
They kept him waiting ten minutes or more, during which he had an uncomfortable feeling he was being watched, although he could not tell exactly how or from where.
There was really a small eye-hole in the wall opposite, of the kind called in French a "Judas," and such as is used in prisons to observe the inmates of the cells. Through this, Hyde had been subjected to a long and patient examination.
It was apparently satisfactory; for presently the inner door was unlocked, and the old woman returned, followed by a man whom we have seen before.
It was Mr. Hobson in person; Ledantec really, as Hyde immediately saw, in spite of the smug, smooth exterior, the British-cut whiskers, and the unmistakable British garb.
"Here is the patron," said the old woman; "tell him what you have to say."
Hyde, addressing himself to Mr. Hobson, began his story in the most perfect French he could command. He spoke the language well, and had no reason to fear that his accent would betray him.
