Part 27 (2/2)

She shook hands and they parted. Peter Ruff drove back to his rooms, rang up an adjoining garage for a small covered car such as are usually let out to medical men, and commenced to pack a small black bag with the outfit necessary for his purpose. Now that he was actually immersed in his work, the sense of depression had pa.s.sed away. The keen stimulus of danger had quickened his blood. He knew very well that the woman had not exaggerated. There was no man more wanted by the French or the English police than the man who had sought his aid, and the district in which he had taken shelter was, in some respects, the very worst for his purpose.

Nevertheless, Peter Ruff, who believed, at the bottom of his heart, in his star, went on with his preparations feeling morally certain that Jean Lemaitre would sleep on the following night in his native land.

At precisely the hour agreed upon, a small motor brougham pulled up outside the door of the Hotel de Flandres and its occupant--whom ninety-nine men out of a hundred would at once, unhesitatingly, have declared to be a doctor in moderate practice--pushed open the swing doors of the restaurant and made his way to the desk. He was of medium height; he wore a frock-coat--a little frayed; gray trousers which had not been recently pressed; and thick boots.

”I understand that one of your waiters requires my attendance,” he said, in a tone not unduly raised but still fairly audible. ”I am Dr.

Gilette.”

”Dr. Gilette,” Antoine repeated, slowly.

”And number Double-Four,” the doctor murmured.

Antoine descended from his desk.

”But certainly, Monsieur!” he said. ”The poor fellow declares that he suffers. If he is really ill, he must go. It sounds brutal, but what can one do? We have so few rooms here, and so much business. Monsieur will come this way?”

Antoine led the way from the cafe into a very smelly region of narrow pa.s.sages and steep stairs.

”It is to be arranged?” Antoine whispered, as they ascended.

”Without a doubt,” the doctor answered. ”Were there spies in the cafe?”

”Two,” Antoine answered.

The doctor nodded, and said no more. He mounted to the third story.

Antoine led him through a small sitting-room and knocked four times upon the door of an inner room. It suddenly was opened. A man--unshaven, terrified, with that nameless fear in his face which one sees reflected in the expression of some trapped animal--stood there looking out at them.

”'Double-Four'!” the doctor said, softly. ”Go back into the room, please. Antoine will kindly leave us.”

”Who are you?” the man gasped.

”'Double-Four'!” the doctor answered. ”Obey me, and be quick for your life! Strip!”

The man obeyed.

Barely twenty minutes later, the doctor--still carrying his bag--descended the stairs. He entered the cafe from a somewhat remote door. Antoine hurried to meet him, and walked by his side through the place. He asked many questions, but the doctor contented himself with shaking his head. Almost in silence he left Antoine, who conducted him even to the door of his motor. The proprietor of the cafe watched the brougham disappear, and then returned to his desk, sighing heavily.

A man who had been sipping a liqueur dose at hand, laid down his paper.

”One of your waiters ill, did I understand?” he asked. Monsieur Antoine was at once eloquent. It was the ill-fortune which had dogged him for the last four months! The man had been taken ill there in the restaurant. He was a Gascon--spoke no English--and had just arrived.

It was not possible for him to be removed at the moment, so he had been carried to an empty bedroom. Then had come the doctor and forbidden his removal. Now for a week he had lain there and several of his other voyageurs had departed. One did not know how these things got about, but they spoke of infection. The doctor, who had just left--Dr. Gilette of Russell Square, a most famous physician--had a.s.sured him that there was no infection--no fear of any. But what did it matter--that? People were so hard to convince. Monsieur would like a cigar? But certainly! There were here some of the best.

Antoine undid the cabinet and opened a box of Havanas. John Dory selected one and called for another liqueur.

”You have trouble often with your waiters, I dare say,” he remarked.

”They tell me that all Frenchmen who break the law in their own country, find their way, sooner or later, to these parts. You have to take them without characters, I suppose?”

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