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Updated: May 7, 2025
"Juve," replied Fandor, "I have been charged by Dupont to look into the Brocq affair, and have had to postpone my holiday to do it that is how you see me this morning.... Well, I have begun my enquiry, and am trying to find out the exact truth regarding this unfortunate officer's death.... I have visited certain of his relations, interviewed the people who have known him, I have been able to get into touch with this Bobinette, who seems to be the last person who approached him a little before his assassination, and I have also arrived at a conclusion."
The captain, however, returned to the adjoining room, hoping to come across the deed of gift he had set his mind on finding. "Come with me, Bobe!" he called. He opened a little writing desk. He thought his mistress had followed him, but she had remained in the study. "Bobinette!" he called again, astonished to find himself alone. She lingered. Brocq went back.
He suggested: "I am not the only one you have met at M. de Naarboveck's. There is that handsome cuirassier, Henri de Loubersac."... Bobinette crimsoned. She shrugged her shoulders. "How stupid you are! Lieutenant Henri does not give me a thought, if he comes to the house."... Brocq interrupted: "Yes, I know he comes on account of the fair Wilhelmine." His tone was conciliatory.
He scrutinised the Place de la Concorde, the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. He was asking himself why Bobinette, after telling him she must hurry away, had driven to the Bois as if she were one of the leisured crowd? This troubled the lover in him as well as the soldier. Why had he rushed after his mistress in this fashion? What definite reason had he?
It was half past three in the afternoon of a dull November day. A kind of twilight was darkening the ground floor flat in the quiet rue de Lille, where the two lovers were together. For some months now Captain Brocq had been on intimate terms with this intoxicating young person, who answered to the nickname "Bobinette." Her features, though irregular, were pleasing.
Abruptly he changed the subject. "Vagualame had a collaborator, a young person whom you know Mademoiselle Berthe, called Bobinette.... Bobinette has done wrong, very wrong, but we will speak no more of her peace to her memory she has expiated her crime!"
Bobinette touched on the various stages of her life up to the day when she came in contact with the Baron de Naarboveck. The care she had lavished on the youthful Wilhelmine gained the gratitude of the rich diplomat and his daughter. From that time they treated her as one of themselves: she became Mademoiselle de Naarboveck's companion.
Almost simultaneously with her backward jerk from the stranger eyes of this Vagualame, Bobinette darted to a chiffonier, slipped her hand into a drawer among ribbons and laces, seized a revolver, and snatched it out.... Agile as a panther, Vagualame leaped at the girl, caught her wrist in a grip like a vice. The pain of it was intense Bobinette dropped her weapon.
Bobinette bent forward, looked Vagualame in the eyes ... started ... drew back with a jerk. This was not the Vagualame she knew!... Not her master!... Who, then?... Who but an enemy?... A police spy?... Horror!... She was trapped!... Lost! Her heart was beating frightfully beating to bursting point.
"Have you solved a new problem, or are you thinking of a dark woman?" Brocq smiled. Amorously he put his arm round the girl's supple figure; drawing her to him, and burying his lips in her abundant and perfumed hair, he murmured tenderly: "I am thinking of the future, of our future." "Good gracious me!" replied Bobinette, withdrawing herself from his arms.
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