Читать книгу The Poisoners - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 11

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A strange voice roused Charles Desgrez. He opened his eyes, looked round, quickly remembered his circumstances and his adventures, and saw that he was in a modest room, plainly furnished and lit by two candles stuck into cheap sticks placed on a table on which were some glasses, a bottle of wine and a flask of eau-de-vie. Two strangers, both mild-seeming elderly men, were looking at him with an air of concern; both wore rather shabby dressing-gowns and nightcaps. One of them had a roll of linen plaster in his hand.

Desgrez smiled, touched his head and found that it had been bandaged.

"I have to thank you, it seems, for timely assistance, gentle men," he said; he glanced round again and was much re assured on seeing Clement seated inside the door.

"Yes, yes, indeed," nodded the gentleman who held the bandages. "I am Doctor Rabel. This is Père Davout."

He smiled at his companion, a stout, flabby man of fifty or so whose fringe of white hair stuck out in comical fashion underneath his cotton sleeping-cap. "We are two old bachelors and we share this house between us."

Desgrez rose; he felt slightly sick and giddy, but had him self almost instantly under self-control.

"Yes," remarked the fussy priest, with a kind of nervous eagerness, "we heard your whistle—it woke us. We ran to the front door, both of us together. You see, we have no servant who sleeps in the house; we found you and your friend in the doorway. It seems that you have been the victim of some scuffle, some quarrel, perhaps. Oh, the streets! Paris is not safe for decent people, as I always say!"

"I am a police officer," said Desgrez briefly. "This is my assistant." He nodded towards Clement, who maintained a taciturn attitude. "We were patrolling the street when we saw someone whom I took to be a suspicious character. We followed him here, at least, I suppose that it was in the door of your house that we were hiding."

"I suppose so," agreed Doctor Rabel with a vague smile. "It was in our porch we found you. A suspicious character in our peaceful cul-de-sac? Why, this little alley, Monsieur, is occupied almost entirely by doctors and students of the University."

At this Desgrez related briefly his adventure; this was met by protests from both the priest and the doctor, who remained standing side by side, looking rather ridiculous in their night attire.

"But no one can have a key to that garden gate, Monsieur, and no one can be lurking behind it! There is a house there that has been empty for years and must be almost entirely uninhabitable by now, save by spiders, bats, rats and mice. Everyone knows what a quiet, respectable place the Impasse des Fleurs is!"

The old priest laughed as he spoke, as if he had made a good joke.

"No, no, you were attacked by footpads, no doubt," said Dr. Rabel, "but not by anyone who was knocking at that garden gate nor by anyone who came through it!"

"Perhaps not," replied Desgrez drily. "We will investigate by daylight. I have now, gentlemen, to thank you for your assistance. I am afraid I have broken your night's repose and I hope I have not been unconscious a long while."

"A matter, perhaps, of an hour and a half," said the Doctor with an amiable smile. "Will you take a little refreshment before you go? Accidents of this kind are my business—I am used to being summoned at night. I work at the Hôtel Dieu."

"No, no, thank you, Doctor, I feel perfectly well now, but if you will give me a little information about this deserted house at the end—"

"Why, certainly, certainly, but I know very little about it; though I have lived here for several years, no one has ever taken any interest in the house at the end of the impasse. I believe it used to be, perhaps a hundred years ago, quite a considerable mansion, but then the grounds were sold and these houses built upon them. The place itself became old-fashioned and was considered inconvenient—nobody would buy it or live in it and so it fell into disrepair. I believe that it is an entirely uninteresting old house."

Desgrez, signalling to the silent Clement, took his leave; and the mild-looking old priest, still expressing concern at the police agent's accident, bowed them out of the room with many good wishes, while the doctor, holding aloft one of his candles, accompanied them to the front door. He was extremely frank, even voluble.

"My name is Rabel, Antoine Rabel. I attend every day at the Hôtel Dieu. I lecture, too, at the Sorbonne. This is my private residence, the fourth house down the Impasse des Fleurs, though I don't think," he added with a little throaty laugh, "you will find many flowers down here! But perhaps in that strip of neglected garden at the end there still are a few blooming, and all that we have ever seen," he added, shading his candle from the wind as the door was opened, "are those poplar trees, and I assure you they are rather tiresome—especially on a windy night. They make such a melancholy sighing sound."

The door closed upon the nightcapped doctor and his candle; the rain had ceased to fall and the sickly light of a full moon fell over the sombre Impasse des Fleurs.

Desgrez felt weak; he leant upon his assistant's arm.

"What do you make of that, Clement? What happened?"

His man could tell him little; some men, certainly three or four men, had emerged from the garden door and fallen upon them; in the fight that ensued he believed that he, Clement, had wounded two or three of them; Desgrez had been struck almost immediately with the butt end of a pistol, Clement supposed; then all had disappeared, and while he was dragging his unconscious officer to the shelter of the nearest porch the door had opened and Doctor Rabel in dressing-gown and slippers had come out, with the air of one disturbed by the fracas in the street.

"They did, Monsieur, of course, all that could be expected of respectable citizens—and yet somehow—"

"Somehow what?" asked Desgrez sharply.

"I don't know," replied his assistant doubtfully. "My suspicions are too fine to be put into words. It's a queer story about that deserted house, they seemed very anxious for us to think that no one could ever go there—foolish of them since what we saw, we saw with our own eyes. Now, Monsieur, let us get out of this place. You are in no state to withstand another attack."

The man added regretfully, as he helped his officer over the cobbles, "I am sorry, Monsieur, that you told them we were police agents—there was nothing about our dress to betray us and I was careful not to let them know who we were."

"Perhaps it was stupid of me—yes, I should not have said that. My mind was not clear, I was a little giddy from the blow. Yes, perhaps it was foolish. You can go home with me, Clement, and then directly to the Bastille. Tell M. de La Reynie what has happened to-night. Give it him as my ad vice—though no doubt it is impertinent of me to give advice—that La Bosse should be arrested immediately. I will wait on him myself to-day when I have reassured my wife as to my safety. Listen! what was that? A coach, at this time of night, and in this weather, in this quarter of the town?"