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I tore back the heavy veil that was suffocating her, and saw a tiny thin white face, not half so large as my little Gaspard's round rosy one. Numbers of black forms hovered about with water and essences; and one tall figure bent to lift the poor child from me, apologizing with a tone of reproof, and declaring that Madame la Comtesse was ashamed to inconvenience Madame.
The man's coolness made Nick even more in doubt about Gaspard's identification. After boarding the train they had walked through it hurriedly, and in the car next the engine Gaspard had clutched Nick's arm, whispering: "There is your man!" The person indicated was well-dressed, rather good-looking, and about thirty-five years old. There was nothing particularly striking about his appearance.
As she took the last flight she could hear Gaspard's stertorous breathing coming at the regular intervals of distressful slumber, and through that an ominous murmur of grave and low-voiced conference, such as one hears in the chambers of the dead.
"Follow him," said Nick. "Bring him back here in about half an hour." Patsy darted away in pursuit of the cab. Nick walked up to the door of Gaspard's house and rang the bell. He was directed to the Frenchman's room. Gaspard was examining the two trunks. He looked very much embarrassed at the sight of Nick. "What's all this, Gaspard?" asked the detective. "I hear you're going back to France."
The doorkeeper had always feared the man; in the lurid light of this deed, Gaspard's image grew into a monster of horror, threatening sudden and swift revenge for disobedience or treachery. No; he must stand firm. But what of the police?
The doorkeeper stood and watched the pair for a minute as they left the Square and turned down a narrow street which led to the poorer part of the town, and thence to the quays. He heard Gaspard's high-pitched voice and shrill laughter, and, in answer, Benham's thick tones and heavy shout of drunken mirth.
On the other side of the blankets which muffled Gaspard's windows, however, firelight shone with its usual ruddiness, showing the seignior of Beauport prostrate on his old tenant's bed. Juchereau de Saint-Denis was wounded, and La Hontan, who was with the skirmishers, and Gaspard had brought him in the dark down to the farmhouse as the nearest hospital.
"I don't repent anything," returned Sainte-Hélène; and Gaspard's jaw relaxed, and he had the feeling of pin-feathers in his hair. "Is he a man or is he a wolf?" repeated the questioner. "The loup-garou is a man, but he takes the form of a wolf." "Not all the time?" "No, monsieur, not all the time?" "Of course not."
It was I who wrote that name in the register. "I! I, and not that innocent man, was her companion. The waiter, Gaspard, is mistaken. "I am the man who was in room B!" The effect of this statement can hardly be exaggerated. It shook the very foundation of the case against the prisoner. If Gaspard's identification could be disproved, it seemed almost sure that Jones was saved.
Being really a cousin of Harry Merrycourt's, he had always seemed like a relation, and he was Gaspard's chief friend, so I was very willing to give him a seat in the carriage, which came from somewhere, and into which the mattress was squeezed by some means or other.
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