The Golden Triangle Part 15

And this first thought led to another: why not investigate matters at once?

"Yes, why not?" he asked himself. "Before bothering the police, discovering the number of the person who rang me up and thus working back to the start, a process which it will be time enough to employ later, why shouldn't I telephone to the Rue Raynouard at once, on any pretext and in anybody's name? I shall then have a chance of knowing what to think. . . ."

Patrice felt that this measure did not amount to much. Suppose that no one answered, would that prove that the murder had been committed in the house, or merely that no one was yet about? Nevertheless, the need to do something decided him. He looked up Essares Bey's number in the telephone-directory and resolutely rang up the exchange.

The strain of waiting was almost more than he could bear. And then he was conscious of a thrill which vibrated through him from head to foot.

He was connected; and some one at the other end was answering the call.

"Hullo!" he said.

"Hullo!" said a voice. "Who are you?"

It was the voice of Essares Bey.

Although this was only natural, since at that moment Essares must be getting his papers ready and preparing his flight, Patrice was so much taken aback that he did not know what to say and spoke the first words that came into his head:

"Is that Essares Bey?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"I'm one of the wounded at the hospital, now under treatment at the home. . . ."

"Captain Belval, perhaps?"

Patrice was absolutely amazed. So Coralie's husband knew him by name? He stammered:

"Yes . . . Captain Belval."

"What a lucky thing!" cried Essares Bey, in a tone of delight. "I rang you up a moment ago, at the home, Captain Belval, to ask . . ."

"Oh, it was you!" interrupted Patrice, whose astonishment knew no bounds.

"Yes, I wanted to know at what time I could speak to Captain Belval in order to thank him."

"It was _you_! . . . It was _you_! . . ." Patrice repeated, more and more thunderstruck.

Essares' intonation denoted a certain surprise.

"Yes, wasn't it a curious coincidence?" he said. "Unfortunately, I was cut off, or rather my call was interrupted by somebody else."

"Then you heard?"

"What, Captain Belval?"

"Cries."

"Cries?"

"At least, so it seemed to me; but the connection was very indistinct."

"All that I heard was somebody asking for you, somebody who was in a great hurry; and, as I was not, I hung up the telephone and postponed the pleasure of thanking you."

"Of thanking me?"

"Yes, I have heard how my wife was a.s.saulted last night and how you came to her rescue. And I am anxious to see you and express my grat.i.tude.

Shall we make an appointment? Could we meet at the hospital, for instance, at three o'clock this afternoon?"

Patrice made no reply. The audacity of this man, threatened with arrest and preparing for flight, baffled him. At the same time, he was wondering what Essares' real object had been in telephoning to him without being in any way obliged to. But Belval's silence in no way troubled the banker, who continued his civilities and ended the inscrutable conversation with a monologue in which he replied with the greatest ease to questions which he kept putting to himself.

In spite of everything, Patrice felt more comfortable. He went back to his room, lay down on his bed and slept for two hours. Then he sent for Ya-Bon.

"This time," he said, "try to control your nerves and not to lose your head as you did just now. You were absurd. But don't let's talk about it. Have you had your breakfast? No? No more have I. Have you seen the doctor? No? No more have I. And the surgeon has just promised to take off this beastly bandage. You can imagine how pleased I am. A wooden leg is all very well; but a head wrapped up in lint, for a lover, never! Get on, look sharp. When we're ready, we'll start for the hospital. Little Mother Coralie can't forbid me to see her there!"

Patrice was as happy as a schoolboy. As he said to Ya-Bon an hour later, on their way to the Porte-Maillot, the clouds were beginning to roll by:

"Yes, Ya-Bon, yes, they are. And this is where we stand. To begin with, Coralie is not in danger. As I hoped, the battle is being fought far away from her, among the accomplices no doubt, over their millions. As for the unfortunate man who rang me up and whose dying cries I overheard, he was obviously some unknown friend, for he addressed me familiarly and called me by my Christian name. It was certainly he who sent me the key of the garden. Unfortunately, the letter that came with the key went astray. In the end, he felt constrained to tell me everything. Just at that moment he was attacked. By whom, you ask.

Probably by one of the accomplices, who was frightened of his revelations. There you are, Ya-Bon. It's all as clear as noonday. For that matter, the truth may just as easily be the exact opposite of what I suggest. But I don't care. The great thing is to take one's stand upon a theory, true or false. Besides, if mine is false, I reserve the right to s.h.i.+ft the responsibility on you. So you know what you're in for.

At the Porte-Maillot they took a cab and it occurred to Patrice to drive round by the Rue Raynouard. At the junction of this street with the Rue de Pa.s.sy, they saw Coralie leaving the Rue Raynouard, accompanied by old Simeon.

She had hailed a taxi and stepped inside. Simeon sat down by the driver. They went to the hospital in the Champs-elysees, with Patrice following. It was eleven o'clock when they arrived.

"All's well," said Patrice. "While her husband is running away, she refuses to make any change in her daily life."

He and Ya-Bon lunched in the neighborhood, strolled along the avenue, without losing sight of the hospital, and called there at half-past one.

Patrice at once saw old Simeon, sitting at the end of a covered yard where the soldiers used to meet. His head was half wrapped up in the usual comforter; and, with his big yellow spectacles on his nose, he sat smoking his pipe on the chair which he always occupied.

As for Coralie, she was in one of the rooms allotted to her on the first floor, seated by the bedside of a patient whose hand she held between her own. The man was asleep.

Coralie appeared to Patrice to be very tired. The dark rings round her eyes and the unusual pallor of her cheeks bore witness to her fatigue.

"Poor child!" he thought. "All those blackguards will be the death of you."

He now understood, when he remembered the scenes of the night before, why Coralie kept her private life secret and endeavored, at least to the little world of the hospital, to be merely the kind sister whom people call by her Christian name. Suspecting the web of crime with which she was surrounded, she dropped her husband's name and told n.o.body where she lived. And so well was she protected by the defenses set up by her modesty and determination that Patrice dared not go to her and stood rooted to the threshold.

"Yet surely," he said to himself, as he looked at Coralie without being seen by her, "I'm not going to send her in my card!"

He was making up his mind to enter, when a woman who had come up the stairs, talking loudly as she went, called out:

"Where is madame? . . . M. Simeon, she must come at once!"

Old Simeon, who had climbed the stairs with her, pointed to where Coralie sat at the far end of the room; and the woman rushed in. She said a few words to Coralie, who seemed upset and at once, ran to the door, pa.s.sing in front of Patrice, and down the stairs, followed by Simeon and the woman.

"I've got a taxi, ma'am," stammered the woman, all out of breath. "I had the luck to find one when I left the house and I kept it. We must be quick, ma'am. . . . The commissary of police told me to . . ."

Patrice, who was downstairs by this time, heard nothing more; but the last words decided him. He seized hold of Ya-Bon as he pa.s.sed; and the two of them leapt into a cab, telling the driver to follow Coralie's taxi.