Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Véronique Durand, and the
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THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP
By Henry Seton Merriman
PREFACE
Henry Seton Merriman published his first novel, “Young Mistley,” in
1888, when he was twenty-six years old. Messrs. Bentley's reader, in his
critique on the book, spoke of its “powerful situations” and
unconventionality of treatment: and, while dwelling at much greater
length on its failings, declared, in effect, its faults to be the right
faults, and added that, if “Young Mistley” was not in itself a good
novel, its author was one who might hereafter certainly write good
novels.
“Young Mistley” was followed in quick succession by “The Phantom
Future,” “Suspense,” and “Prisoners and Captives.” Some years later,
considering them crude and immature works, the author, at some
difficulty and with no little pecuniary loss, withdrew all these four
first books from circulation in England. Their republication in America
he was powerless to prevent. He therefore revised and abbreviated them,
“conscious,” as he said himself in a preface, “of a hundred defects
which the most careful revision cannot eliminate.” He was perhaps then,
as he was ever, too severe a critic of his own works. But though these
four early books have, added to youthful failings, the youthful merits
of freshness, vigour and imagination, their author was undoubtedly right
to suppress them. By writing them he learnt, it is true, the technique
of his art: but no author wishes--or no author should wish--to give his
copy-books to the world. It is as well then--it is certainly as he
himself desired--that these four books do not form part of the present
edition. It may, however, be noted that both “Young Mistley” and
“Prisoners and Captives” dealt, as did “The Sowers” hereafter, with
Russian subjects: “Suspense” is the story of a war-correspondent in the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877: and “The Phantom Future” is the only novel of
Merriman's in which the scene is laid entirely in his own country.
In 1892 he produced “The Slave of the Lamp,” which had run serially
through the _Cornhill Magazine_, then under the editorship of Mr.
James Payn.
To Mr. Payn, Merriman always felt that he owed a debt of gratitude for
much shrewd and kindly advice and encouragement. But one item of that
advice he neglected with, as Mr. Payn always generously owned, great
advantage. Mr. Payn believed that the insular nature of the ordinary
Briton made it, as a general rule, highly undesirable that the scene of
any novel should be laid outside the British Isles.
After 1892 all Merriman's books, with the single exception of “Flotsam,”
which appeared serially in _Longman's Magazine_, and was, at first,
produced in book form by Messrs. Longman, were published by the firm of
Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co.
His long and serene connection with the great and honourable house which
had produced the works of such masters of literature as Thackeray,
Charlotte Bronte, and Robert Browning, was always a source of sincere
pleasure to him. He often expressed the opinion that, from the moment
when, as an inexperienced and perfectly unknown author, he sent “Young
Mistley” to Messrs. Bentley, until the time when, as a very successful
one, he was publishing his later novels with Messrs. Smith, Elder, he
had invariably received from his publishers an entirely just and upright
treatment.
Also in 1892 he produced “From One Generation to Another”: and, two
years later, the first of his really successful novels, “With Edged
Tools.” It is the only one of his books of which he never visited the
_mise-en-scène_--West Africa: but he had so completely imbued
himself with the scenery and the spirit of the country that few, if any,
of his critics detected that he did not write of it from personal
experience. Many of his readers were firmly convinced of the reality of
the precious plant, Simiacine, on whose discovery the action of the plot
turns. More than one correspondent wrote to express a wish to take
shares in the Simiacine Company!
“With Edged Tools” was closely followed by “The Grey Lady.” Some
practical experience of a seafaring life, a strong love of it, and a
great fellow-feeling for all those whose business is in great waters,
helped the reality of the characters of the sailor brothers and of the
sea-scenes generally. The author was for some years, and at the time
“The Grey Lady” was written, an underwriter at Lloyd's, so that on the
subject of ship insurance--a subject on which it will be remembered
part of the plot hinges--he was _en pays de connaissance_. For the
purpose of this story, he travelled in the Balearic Islands, having,
earlier, made the first of many visits to Spain.
One of the strongest characteristics in his nature, as it is certainly
one of the strongest characteristics in his books, was his sympathy
with, and, in consequence, his understanding of, the mind of the
foreigner. For him, indeed, there were no alien countries. He learnt the
character of the stranger as quickly as he learnt his language. His
greatest delight was to merge himself completely in the life and
interests of the country he was visiting--to stay at the mean
_venta_, or the _auberge_ where the tourist was never seen--to
sit in the local cafés of an evening and listen to local politics and
gossip; to read for the time nothing but the native newspapers, and no
literature but the literature, past and present, of the land where he
was sojourning; to follow the native customs, and to see Spain, Poland
or Russia with the eyes and from the point of view of the Spaniard, the
Pole or the Russian.
The difficulties--sometimes there were even serious difficulties--of
visiting places where there was neither provision nor protection made
for the stranger, always acted upon him not as deterrent but incentive:
he liked something to overcome, and found the safe, comfortable,
convenient resting-places as uncongenial to his nature as they were
unproductive for the purposes of his work.
In 1896 “The Sowers” was published. Merriman's travels in Russia had
taken place some years before--before, in fact, the publication of
“Young Mistley”--but time had not at all weakened the strong and sombre
impression which that great country and its unhappy people had left upon
him. The most popular of all his books with his English public, Merriman
himself did not consider it his best. It early received the compliment
of being banned by the Russian censor: very recently, a Russian woman
told the present writers that “The Sowers” is still the first book the
travelling Russian buys in the Tauchnitz edition, as soon as he is out
of his own country--“we like to hear the truth about ourselves.”
In the same year as “The Sowers,” Merriman produced “Flotsam.” It is
not, strictly speaking, a romance: some of its main incidents were taken
from the life of a young officer of the 44th Regiment in Early Victorian
days. The character of Harry Wylam is, as a whole, faithful to its
prototype; and the last scene in the book, recording Harry's death in
the Orange Free State, as he was being taken in a waggon to the
missionary station by the Bishop of the State, is literally accurate.
Merriman had visited India as a boy; so here, too, the scenery is from
the brush of an eye-witness.
His next novel, “In Kedar's Tents,” was his first Spanish novel--pure
and simple: the action of “The Grey Lady” taking place chiefly in
Majorca.
All the country mentioned in “In Kedar's Tents” Merriman visited
personally--riding, as did Frederick Conyngham and Concepcion Vara, from
Algeciras to Ronda, then a difficult ride through a wild, beautiful and
not too safe district, the accommodation at Algeciras and Ronda being at
that time of an entirely primitive description. Spain had for Merriman
ever a peculiar attraction: the character of the Spanish
gentleman--proud, courteous, dignified--particularly appealed to him.
The next country in which he sought inspiration was Holland. “Roden's
Corner,” published in 1898, broke new ground: its plot, it will be
remembered, turns on a commercial enterprise. The title and the main
idea of the story were taken from Merriman's earliest literary venture,
the beginning of a novel--there were only a few chapters of it--which
he had written before “Young Mistley,” and which he had discarded,
dissatisfied.
The novel “Dross” was produced in America in 1899, having appeared
serially in this country in a well-known newspaper. Written during a
period of ill-health, Merriman thought it beneath his best work, and,
true to that principle which ruled his life as an author, to give to the
public so far as he could of that best, and of that best only, he
declined (of course to his own monetary disadvantage) to permit its
publication in England in book form.
Its _mise-en-scène_ is France and Suffolk; its period the Second
Empire--the period of “The Last Hope.” Napoleon III., a character by
whom Merriman was always peculiarly attracted, shadows it: in it appears
John Turner, the English banker of Paris, of “The Last Hope”; an
admirable and amusing sketch of a young Frenchman; and an excellent
description of the magnificent scenery about Saint Martin Lantosque, in
the Maritime Alps.
For the benefit of “The Isle of Unrest,” his next book, Merriman had
travelled through Corsica--not the Corsica of fashionable hotels and
health-resorts, but the wild and unknown parts of that lawless and
magnificent island. For “The Velvet Glove” he visited Pampeluna,
Saragossa, and Lerida. The country of “The Vultures”--Warsaw and its
neighbourhood--he saw in company with his friend, Mr. Stanley Weyman.
The pleasure of another trip, the one he took in western
France--Angoulême, Cognac, and the country of the Charente--for the
scenery of “The Last Hope,” was also doubled by Mr. Weyman's presence.
In Dantzig--the Dantzig of “Barlasch of the Guard”--Merriman made a stay
in a bitter mid-winter, visiting also Vilna and Königsberg; part of the
route of the Great Retreat from Moscow he traced himself. He was
inclined to consider--and if an author is not quite the worst judge of
his own work he is generally quite the best--that in “Barlasch” he
reached his high-water mark. The short stories, comprised in the volume
entitled “Tomaso's Fortune,” were published after his death. In every
case, the _locale_ they describe was known to Merriman personally.
At the Monastery of Montserrat--whence the monk in “A Small World” saw
the accident to the diligencia--the author had made a stay of some days.
The Farlingford of “The Last Hope” is Orford in Suffolk: the French
scenes, as has been said, Merriman had visited with Mr. Weyman, whose
“Abbess of Vlaye” they also suggested. The curious may still find the
original of the Hôtel Gemosac in Paris--not far from the Palais d'Orsay
Hôtel--“between the Rue de Lille and the Boulevard St. Germain.”
“The Last Hope” was not, in a sense, Merriman's last novel. He left at
his death about a dozen completed chapters, and the whole plot carefully
mapped out, of yet another Spanish book, which dealt with the Spain of
the Peninsular War of 1808-14. These chapters, which were destroyed by
the author's desire, were of excellent promise, and written with great
vigour and spirit. His last trip was taken, in connection with this
book, to the country of Sir Arthur Wellesley's exploits. The plot of the
story was concerned with a case of mistaken identity; the sketch of a
Guerilla leader, Pedro--bearing some affinity to the Concepcion Vara of
“In Kedar's Tents”--was especially happy.
It has been seen that Merriman was not the class of author who “sits in
Fleet Street and writes news from the front.” He strongly believed in
the value of personal impressions, and scarcely less in the value of
first impressions. In his own case, the correctness of his first
impressions--what he himself called laughingly his _“coup
d'oeil”_--is in a measure proved by a note-book, now lying before the
writers, in which he recorded his views of Bastia and the Corsicans
after a very brief acquaintance--that view requiring scarcely any
modification when first impressions had been exchanged for real
knowledge and experience.
As to his methods of writing, in the case of all his novels, except the
four early suppressed ones, he invariably followed the plan of drawing
out the whole plot and a complete synopsis of every chapter before he
began to write the book at all.
Partly as a result of this plan perhaps, but more as a result of great
natural facility in writing, his manuscripts were often without a single
erasure for many pages; and a typewriter was really a superfluity.
It is certainly true to say that no author ever had more pleasure in his
art than Merriman. The fever and the worry which accompany many literary
productions he never knew.
Among the professional critics he had neither personal friends nor
personal foes; and accepted their criticisms--hostile or
favourable--with perfect serenity and open-mindedness. He was, perhaps,
if anything, only too ready to alter his work in accordance with their
advice: he always said that he owed them much; and admired their
perspicuity in detecting a promise in his earliest books, which he
denied finding there himself. His invincible modesty made him ready to
accept not only professional criticism but--a harder thing--the advice
of critics on the hearth. It was out of compliance with such a domestic
criticism that the _dénouement_ in “The Sowers” was re-written as
it now stands, the scene of the attack on the Castle being at first
wholly different.
The jealousy and bitterness which are supposed to be inseparable from
the literary life certainly never affected Merriman's. He had no trace
of such feelings in his nature. Of one who is known to the public
exclusively through his writings, it may seem strange--but it is not the
less true--to say that his natural bent was not to the life of a
literary man, but to a life of action, and that it was fate, rather than
inclination, which made him express himself in words instead of deeds. A
writer's books are generally his best biography: the “strong, quiet
man,” whose forte was to do much and say nothing; who, like Marcos
Sarrion, loved the free and plain life of the field and the open, was a
natural hero for Merriman, “as finding there unconsciously some image of
himself.”
To any other biography he was strongly opposed. His dislike of the
advertisement and the self-advertisement of the interview and the
personal paragraph deepened with time. He held strongly and
consistently, as he held all his opinions, that a writer should be known
to the public by his books, and by his books only. One of his last
expressed wishes was that there should be no record of his private life.
It is respect for that wish which here stays the present writers' pen.
E.F.S.
S.G.T.
_July_ 1909.
CONTENTS
CHAPTERS
I. IN THE RUE ST. GINGOLPHE
II. TOOLS
III. WITHOUT REST
IV. BURDENED
V. A REUNION
VI. BROKEN THREADS
VII. PUPPETS
VIII. FALSE METAL
IX. A CLUE
X. ON THE SCENT
XI. BURY BLUFF
XII. A WARNING WORD
XIII. A NIGHT WATCH
XIV. FOILED
XV. ROOKS
XVI. FOES
XVII. A RETREAT
XVIII. AN EMPTY NEST
XIX. FOUL PLAY
XX. WINGED
XXI. TRUE TO HIS CLOTH
XXII. GREEK AND GREEK
XXIII. STRICKEN DOWN
XXIV. BACK TO LIFE
XXV. BACK TO WORK
XXVI. SIGNOR BRUNO
XXVII. IN THE RUE ST GINGOLPHE AGAIN
XXVIII. THE MAKING OF CHRISTIAN VELLACOTT
CHAPTER I
IN THE RUE ST. GINGOLPHE
It was, not so many years ago, called the Rue de l'Empire, but
republics are proverbially sensitive. Once they are established they
become morbidly desirous of obliterating a past wherein no republic
flourished. The street is therefore dedicated to St. Gingolphe to-day.
To-morrow? Who can tell?
It is presumably safe to take it for granted that you are located in the
neighbourhood of the Louvre, on the north side of the river which is so
unimportant a factor to Paris. For all good Englishmen have been, or
hope in the near future to be, located near this spot. All good
Americans, we are told, relegate the sojourn to a more distant future.
The bridge to cross is that of the Holy Fathers. So called to-day. Once
upon a time--but no matter. Bridges are peculiarly liable to change in
troubled times. The Rue St. Gingolphe is situated between the Boulevard
St. Germain and Quai Voltaire. One hears with equal facility the
low-toned boom of the steamers' whistle upon the river, and the crack of
whips in the boulevard. Once across the bridge, turn to the right, and
go along the Quay, between the lime-trees and the bookstalls. You will
probably go slowly because of the bookstalls. No one worth talking to
could help doing so. Then turn to the left, and after a few paces you
will find upon your right hand the Rue St. Gingolphe. It is noted in the
Directory “Botot” that this street is one hundred and forty-five mètres
long; and who would care to contradict “Botot,” or even to throw the
faintest shadow of a doubt upon his statement? He has probably measured.
If your fair and economical spouse should think of repairing to the
Bon-Marché to secure some of those wonderful linen pillow-cases (at one
franc forty) with your august initial embroidered on the centre with a
view of impressing the sleeper's cheek, she will pass the end of the Rue
St. Gingolphe on her way--provided the cabman be honest. There! You
cannot help finding it now.
The street itself is a typical Parisian street of one hundred and
forty-five mètres. There is room for a baker's, a café, a bootmaker's,
and a tobacconist who sells very few stamps. The Parisians do not write
many letters. They say they have not time. But the tobacconist makes up
for the meanness of his contribution to the inland revenue of one
department by a generous aid to the other. He sells a vast number of
cigarettes and cigars of the very worst quality. And it is upon the
worst quality that the Government makes the largest profit. It is in
every sense of the word a weed which grows as lustily as any of its
compeers in and around Oran, Algiers, and Bonah.
The Rue St. Gingolphe is within a stone's-throw of the École des
Beaux-Arts, and in the very centre of a remarkably cheap and yet
respectable quarter. Thus there are many young men occupying apartments
in close proximity--and young men do not mind much what they smoke,
especially provincial young men living in Paris. They feel it incumbent
upon them to be constantly smoking something--just to show that they are
Parisians, true sons of the pavement, knowing how to live. And their
brightest hopes are in all truth realised, because theirs is certainly a
reckless life, flavoured as it is with “number one” tobacco, and those
“little corporal” cigarettes which are enveloped in the blue paper.
The tobacconist's shop is singularly convenient. It has, namely, an
entrance at the back, as well as that giving on to the street of St.
Gingolphe. This entrance is through a little courtyard, in which is the
stable and coach-house combined, where Madame Perinère, a lady who
paints the magic word “Modes” beneath her name on the door-post of
number seventeen, keeps the dapper little cart and pony which carry her
bonnets to the farthest corner of Paris.
The tobacconist is a large man, much given to perspiration. In fact, one
may safely make the statement that he perspires annually from the middle
of April to the second or even third week in October. In consequence of
this habit he wears no collar, and a man without a collar does not start
fairly on the social race. It is always best to make inquiries before
condemning a man who wears no collar. There is probably a very good
reason, as in the case of Mr. Jacquetot, but it is to be feared that few
pause to seek it. One need not seek the reason with much assiduity in
this instance, because the tobacconist of the Rue St. Gingolphe is
always prepared to explain it at length. French people are thus. They
talk of things, and take pleasure in so doing, which we, on this side of
the Channel, treat with a larger discretion.
Mr. Jacquetot does not even wear a collar on Sunday, for the simple
reason that Sunday is to him as other days. He attends no place of
worship, because he acknowledges but one god--the god of most
Frenchmen--his inner man. His pleasures are gastronomical, his sorrows
stomachic. The little shop is open early and late, Sundays, week-days,
and holidays. Moreover, the tobacconist--Mr. Jacquetot himself--is
always at his post, on the high chair behind the counter, near the
window, where he can see into the street. This constant attention to
business is almost phenomenal, because Frenchmen who worship the god of
Mr. Jacquetot love to pay tribute on fête-days at one of the little
restaurants on the Place at Versailles, at Duval's, or even in the
Palais Royal. Mr. Jacquetot would have loved nothing better than a
pilgrimage to any one of these shrines, but he was tied to the little
tobacco store. Not by the chains of commerce. Oh, no! When rallied by
his neighbours for such an unenterprising love of his own hearth, he
merely shrugged his heavy shoulders.
“What will you?” he would say; “one has one's affairs.”
Now the affairs of Mr. Jacquetot were, in the days with which we have to
do, like many things on this earth, inasmuch as they were not what they
seemed.
It would be inexpedient, for reasons closely connected with the
tobacconist of the Rue St. Gingolphe, as well as with other gentlemen
still happily with us in the flesh, to be too exact as to dates. Suffice
it, therefore, to say that it was only a few years ago that Mr.
Jacquetot sat one evening as usual in his little shop. It happened to be
a Tuesday evening, which is fortunate, because it was on Tuesdays and
Saturdays that the little barber from round the corner called and shaved
the vast cheeks of the tobacconist. Mr. Jacquetot was therefore quite
presentable--doubly so, indeed, because it was yet March, and he had not
yet entered upon his summer season.
The little street was very quiet. There was no through traffic, and
folks living in this quarter of Paris usually carry their own parcels.
It was thus quite easy to note the approach of any passenger, when such
had once turned the corner. Some one was approaching now, and Mr.
Jacquetot threw away the stump of a cheap cigar. One would almost have
said that he recognised the step at a considerable distance. Young
people are in the habit of considering that when one gets old and stout
one loses in intelligence; but this is not always the case. One is apt
to expect little from a fat man; but that is often a mistake. Mr.
Jacquetot weighed seventeen stone, but he was eminently intelligent. He
had recognised the footstep while it was yet seventy mètres away.
In a few moments a gentleman of middle height paused in front of the
shop, noted that it was a tobacconist's, and entered, carrying an
unstamped letter with some ostentation. It must, by the way, be
remembered that in France postage-stamps are to be bought at all
tobacconists'.
The new-comer's actions were characterised by a certain carelessness, as
if he were going through a formula--perfunctorily--without admitting its
necessity.
He nodded to Mr. Jacquetot, and rather a pleasant smile flickered for a
moment across his face. He was a singularly well-made man, of medium
height, with straight, square shoulders and small limbs. He wore
spectacles, and as he looked at one straight in the face there was a
singular contraction of the eyes which hardly amounted to a
cast--moreover, it was momentary. It was precisely the look of a hawk
when its hood is suddenly removed in full daylight. This resemblance was
furthered by the fact that the man's profile was birdlike. He was
clean-shaven, and there was in his sleek head and determined little face
that smooth, compact self-complacency which is to be noted in the head
of a hawk.
The face was small, like that of a Greek bust, but in expression it
suggested a yet older people. There was that mystic depth of expression
which comes from ancient Egypt. No one feature was obtrusive--all were
chiselled with equal delicacy; and yet there was only one point of real
beauty in the entire countenance. The mouth was perfect. But the man
with a perfect mouth is usually one whom it will be found expedient to
avoid. Without a certain allowance of sensuality no man is
genial--without a little weakness there is no kind heart. This
Frenchman's mouth was not, however, obtrusively faultless. It was
perfect in its design, but, somehow, many people failed to take note of
the fact. It is so with the “many,” one finds. The human world is so
blind that at times it would be almost excusable to harbour the
suspicion that animals see more. There may be something in that instinct
by which dogs, horses, and cats distinguish between friends and foes,
detect sympathy, discover antipathy. It is possible that they see things
in the human face to which our eyes are blinded--intentionally and
mercifully blinded. If some of us were a little more observant, a few of
the human combinations which we bring about might perhaps be less
egregiously mistaken.
It was probably the form of the lips that lent pleasantness to the smile
with which Mr. Jacquetot was greeted, rather than the expression of the
velvety eyes, which had in reality no power of smiling at all. They were
sad eyes, like those of the women one sees on the banks of the Upper
Nile, which never alter in expression--eyes that do not seem to be busy
with this life at all, but fully occupied with something else: something
beyond to-morrow or behind yesterday.
“Not yet arrived?” inquired the new-comer in a voice of some
distinction. It was a full, rich voice, and the French it spoke was not
the French of Mr. Jacquetot, nor, indeed, of the Rue St. Gingolphe. It
was the language one sometimes hears in an old _château_ lost in
the depths of the country--the vast unexplored rural districts of
France--where the bearers of dangerously historical names live out their
lives with a singular suppression and patience. They are either biding
their time or else they are content with the past and the part played by
their ancestors therein. For there is an old French and a new. In Paris
the new is spoken--the very newest. Were it anything but French it would
be intolerably vulgar; as it is, it is merely neat and intensely
expressive.
“Not yet arrived, sir,” said the tobacconist, and then he seemed to
recollect himself, for he repeated:
“Not yet arrived,” without the respectful addition which had slipped out
by accident.
The new arrival took out his watch--a small one of beautiful
workmanship, the watch of a lady--and consulted it. His movements were
compact and rapid. He would have made a splendid light-weight boxer.
“That,” he said shortly, “is the way they fail. They do not understand
the necessity of exactitude. The people--see you, Mr. Jacquetot, they
fail because they have no exactitude.”
“But I am of the people,” moving ponderously on his chair.
“Essentially so. I know it, my friend. But I have taught you something.”
The tobacconist laughed.
“I suppose so. But is it safe to stand there in the full day? Will you
not pass in? The room is ready; the lamp is lighted. There is an agent
of the police always at the end of the street now.”
“Ah, bah!” and he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. “I am not
afraid of them. There is only one thing to be feared, Citizen
Jacquetot--the press. The press and the people, _bien entendu_.”
“If you despise the people why do you use them?” asked Jacquetot
abruptly.
“In default of better, my friend. If one has not steam one uses the
river to turn the mill-wheel. The river is slow; sometimes it is too
weak, sometimes too strong. One never has full control over it, but it
turns the wheel--it turns the wheel, brother Jacquetot.”
“And eventually sweeps away the miller,” suggested the tobacconist
lightly. It must be remembered that though stout he was intelligent. Had
he not been so it is probable that this conversation would never have
taken place. The dark-eyed man did not look like one who would have the
patience to deal with stupid people.
Again the pleasant smile flickered like the light of a fire in a dark
place.
“That,” was the reply, “is the affair of the miller.”
“But,” conceded Jacquetot, meditatively selecting a new cigar from a box
which he had reached without moving from his chair, “but the
people--they are fools, hein!”
“Ah!” with a protesting shrug, as if deprecating the enunciation of such
a platitude.
Then he passed through into a little room behind the shop--a little room
where no daylight penetrated, because there was no window to it. It
depended for daylight upon the shop, with which it communicated by a
door of which the upper half was glass. But this glass was thickly
curtained with the material called Turkey-red, threefold.
And the tobacconist was left alone in his shop, smoking gravely. There
are some people like oysters, inasmuch as they leave an after-taste
behind them. The man who had just gone into the little room at the rear
of the tobacconist's shop of the Rue St. Gingolphe in Paris was one of
these. And the taste he left behind him was rather disquieting. One was
apt to feel that there was a mistake somewhere in the ordering of human
affairs, and that this man was one of its victims.
In a few minutes two men passed hastily through the shop into the little
room, with scarcely so much as a nod for Mr. Jacquetot.