Читать книгу The Poisoners - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 10

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That evening Desgrez, acting on instructions from the Chief of Police, took one of his men—a fellow Norman named. Clement, whom he entirely trusted—and set out to watch the house of the Widow Bosse. It was a stormy night; cold rain fell with each gust of wind; the filthy water of the swollen gutters overflowed, making the streets almost impassable; the rain rushed along the gutters in the front of the hôtels and fell in cascades from the spouts at the corners. There were few people abroad.

Solange had watched her husband go on his errand with much trepidation; since the discovery that the second phial that Madame Bosse had sold her contained poison, she had felt most uneasy, and wished that her husband had not em barked upon the affair which he told her enthusiastically would end in fame and fortune for both of them. Solange had been ambitious and had desired, more for her husband's sake than her own, success and the rewards of success. But now that her Charles had discovered so suddenly and unexpectedly this horrible mystery, she would have wished him to draw back. Nor was she consoled by the little bag of gold pieces that he put triumphantly into her hands; this represented the money, part of the price of the sapphire bracelet, which she had expended in "The Lily Pot," and which had been instantly repaid by M. de La Reynie.

"You can now, my dear, buy yourself two or three fine dresses," he had said as he kissed her good-bye.

But Solange had not felt any interest in new clothes, or even in the handsome sum of money locked away in the metal coffer under her bed. She pulled aside the serge curtains from the high casement; she did not dare open the window—the storm wind was too high—but through the diamond panes of glass peered down into the street below and watched her husband and his man, heavily cloaked and looking like ordinary citizens, pass along the narrow street so dimly lit by the oil lamp whose flame fluttered in the tearing wind.

M. de la Reynie had suspected that Madame Bosse received some of her more valuable and more deeply implicated clients in the evening or even at night, and when the two men reached the rue de Saint-Pierre they were pleased to see a faint light burning in the bow-window of the perfumer's shop; the shuttered residences either side were in darkness.

Keeping well in the shadow on the opposite side of the road, Desgrez observed these houses for the first time. Fearful of arousing the Widow's suspicions, he had not been near the place while his wife was making her visits there; now he noted, as closely as he could, the whole neighbourhood.

The little crooked, winding street was lit by four lamps. One was quite close to the perfumer's shop, so Desgrez was able to see that these neighbouring houses were empty, or had every appearance of being so; the shutters were closed across the windows, the doors were shut and had the appearance of not having been opened for a long time, since the metalwork on them was unpolished and heavily splashed with street dirt; no signs hung out.

In the Widow Bosse's dossier the police had noted that she let out the rooms above her shop, but Desgrez could see no sign that this was true; the windows that gave on the street at least were all shuttered and had no hint of life; but in the little shop itself the lantern light gleamed dully through the square panes of glass.

"Well," whispered Desgrez to Clement, "I do not think that we shall see much to-night—the weather is too foul for even one on a bad errand to be abroad."

So keen, however, was his curious interest in the matter he had taken in hand that he could not bring himself to leave immediately, but despite the wind and rain, continued walking up and down, keeping his eyes on the dimly lit shop-front.

He was soon and unexpectedly rewarded. The door of "The Lily Pot" opened with a little tinkle of the shop bell; there was a glimpse of the Widow Bosse in a grey satin dress holding up a lantern, the light of which fell on her plump, flushed and smiling face. A man, heavily cloaked, stepped out. The door was shut, there was the sound of bolts being drawn, the light in the shop went out.

"I suppose," said Desgrez to his man, "that is only the lover, our friend the wool-merchant, Bax. But let us follow him."

The man turned unhesitatingly down the street towards the Cathedral and the river, and the two police agents followed him at a careful distance. This kind of tracking was not easy in the solitude of the streets, where even a footfall echoed distinctly in the emptiness and silence.

But Desgrez and his man contrived to keep the stranger well in view by creeping along softly in the shadows, dodging the lights of the street lamps and hiding under the darkness of balconies and in the black recesses of doorways.

Desgrez had taken the address of Bax, the wool-merchant, who lived in a modest house near the University. This, then, was either not he or he was not going home, for he turned towards the bridge which crossed the river. The force of the rain lessened with the rising of the wind, which howled with a melancholy intensity round the corners of the houses and along the wet, dark, desolate streets. After half an hour's laborious tracking the two policemen saw the man whom they pursued turn down a cul-de-sac and pause before the door of a garden wall at the end.

This part of Paris was not very well known to Desgrez and he was not quite sure where he was; beyond the fact that this was a blind alley (he could not see the name up anywhere) of respectable-looking houses ending in this high brick wall, he knew nothing of his whereabouts. Above the wall the wind shook to and fro straight upright boughs of leafless poplar trees, dimly discernible in the flickering light of the horn lantern that hung above the sunken garden door.

This ragged illumination also fell over the stranger, who appeared to be absorbed in getting out his key; Desgrez with Clement behind him, crouched in the portico of the silent house at the end of the impasse; he intended, as soon as the man had entered the garden, to climb the wall and follow him; meanwhile, he was keenly memorizing the stranger's appearance. There was, however, little peculiar to be discerned in the heavily cloaked figure with the broad-leaved hat drawn down to the folds of the mantle, only that the man was tall, well built and appeared young, at least no more than middle aged.

"He is a long time getting his key, Monsieur," whispered Clement.

"I think he knows we are here," replied Desgrez with his hand on his pistol. "Look out. I do not suppose he would care to tackle us single-handed or even to attract attention to him self by a fight. He is wondering how to slip away."

As they whispered in the doorway the stranger, with an exclamation of annoyance as if he could not find his key, suddenly struck with his knuckles three times, with a pause, and then again three times, upon the door in the garden wall. This signal was almost instantly answered. The door was opened from within; instead of passing through, the stranger said in a loud voice:

"I am followed—in that portico there."

Desgrez instantly blew the whistle he carried, to summon at need help from the Watch and the City police, and advanced, followed by Clement from the doorway; he was unable, how ever, to put himself in an attitude of defence before he was overwhelmed by what seemed to him, in that grey, uncertain light splashed with rain, a crowd of flying shapes. He felt a severe pain on the temple, then his senses slid into darkness.