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Updated: May 20, 2025
Once more, before he spoke, he looked behind to where Bartot's back was still turned. "For monsieur," he whispered, setting the wine list upon the table, and under it the note. I nodded, and he hastened away. At that moment Bartot turned and came down the room. As he approached he looked at me once more, as though, for some reason or other, he was more than ordinarily interested in my presence.
There was a loud knock at the door and the sound of voices outside. Monsieur Bartot entered, in a frock-coat too small for him and a tie too large. When he saw us he fell back with a theatrical start. "Susette!" he exclaimed. "Susette! And you, sir!" he added, turning to me. He slammed the door and stood with his back to it.
There was something unreal about the whole scene, something which I was never able afterwards to focus absolutely in my mind as a whole, although disjointed parts of it were always present in my thoughts. But I know that as I looked back she rose a little to her feet and leaned over the table, and heedless of Bartot, who was now by her side, she waved her hand almost as though in approbation.
Go and find him, and bring him here. Tell him that Bartot is here and is terrifying me, that he threatens all the time. Please bring him." "I will go at once," I answered. I bowed and turned away. Of Bartot I took no notice, though he rose at once and seemed about to address me. I hurried into the cafe, but it was a slack hour and there were no signs of Louis.
So it goes on, Capitaine Rotherby," she said, looking at me with her sad eyes. "So it will go on to the end." "Come," I said, "you must not get morbid." "Morbid," she repeated. "It is not that. It is because I know." "Do you believe, then," I asked, "that Bartot was poisoned?" She looked at me as though in surprise. Her eyes were like the eyes of a child. "I know it!" she answered simply.
"Claims," I answered, "which I can assure you I am not in a position to dispute." "How is it, then," he asked fiercely, "that I find you two, strangers last night, together to-day here?" I altered one of the cartridges in my revolver and let it go with a snap. Bartot took a quick step backwards. "It is a long story," I said softly, "and I doubt whether it would interest you, Monsieur Bartot.
I bent across the table to Lamartine. "Lamartine," I said, "there was a man who came here once a companion of that woman Bartot. He came to make trouble with Louis, and he dined here once. He dined nowhere else on earth!" Lamartine was suddenly grave. "Would Louis dare!" he muttered. "Why not?" I answered. "See, Louis is watching us even now!" Lamartine half rose from his seat. I pushed him back.
"What the devil is the meaning of this?" he asked, looking from one to the other of us. I shrugged my shoulders. "You had better ask mademoiselle," I answered. "She is, I believe, an acquaintance of yours. As for me " "My name is Bartot, sir," he cried fiercely. "An excellent name," I answered, "but unknown to me. I do not yet understand by what right you intrude into a private room here."
The coffin has been taken to the undertaker's. The funeral will be from there." "Who is the man?" I asked. "Had he been ill long?" The clerk shook his head. "He was a Frenchman," he said; "Bartot was his name. He had an apoplectic stroke in the cafe one day last week, and since then complications set in." I turned away with a little shiver. It was not pleasant to reflect upon this man's death!
He pointed to a table a little distance away, where Monsieur Bartot was already dining. His back was towards us broad and ugly, with its rolls of fat flesh around the neck, almost concealing the low collar. "Some day," I remarked, "our friend Monsieur Bartot will suffer from apoplexy." "It would not be surprising," Louis answered. "He is looking very flushed to-night.
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