Part 26 (1/2)
”I think, Monsieur Rouletabille, that we've not much more to do at the Glandier, and that we sha'n't sleep here many more nights.”
”I think so, too, Monsieur Fred.”
”Then you think the conclusion of the matter has been reached?”
”I think, indeed, that we have nothing more to find out,” replied Rouletabille.
”Have you found your criminal?” asked Larsan.
”Have you?”
”Yes.”
”So have I,” said Rouletabille.
”Can it be the same man?”
”I don't know if you have swerved from your original idea,” said the young reporter. Then he added, with emphasis: ”Monsieur Darzac is an honest man!”
”Are you sure of that?” asked Larsan. ”Well, I am sure he is not. So it's a fight then?”
”Yes, it is a fight. But I shall beat you, Monsieur Frederic Larsan.”
”Youth never doubts anything,” said the great Fred laughingly, and held out his hand to me by way of conclusion.
Rouletabille's answer came like an echo:
”Not anything!”
Suddenly Larsan, who had risen to wish us goodnight, pressed both his hands to his chest and staggered. He was obliged to lean on Rouletabille for support, and to save himself from falling.
”Oh! Oh!” he cried. ”What is the matter with me?-Have I been poisoned?”
He looked at us with haggard eyes. We questioned him vainly; he did not answer us. He had sunk into an armchair and we could get not a word from him. We were extremely distressed, both on his account and on our own, for we had partaken of all the dishes he had eaten. He seemed to be out of pain; but his heavy head had fallen on his shoulder and his eyelids were tightly closed. Rouletabille bent over him, listening for the beatings of the heart.
My friend's face, however, when he stood up, was as calm as it had been a moment before agitated.
”He is asleep,” he said.
He led me to his chamber, after closing Larsan's room.
”The drug?” I asked. ”Does Mademoiselle Stangerson wish to put everybody to sleep, to-night?”
”Perhaps,” replied Rouletabille; but I could see he was thinking of something else.
”But what about us?” I exclaimed. ”How do we know that we have not been drugged?”
”Do you feel indisposed?” Rouletabille asked me coolly.