Part 64 (1/2)
”Let us hurry!” said Vagualame: ”Let us seek shelter.”
”Where?”
”You will see--with friends.”
What did it matter to Bobinette where they were going while strange doubts and horrid fears filled her mind?
”Who released you?”
They were pa.s.sing beneath a street lamp. Vagualame noted that Bobinette was regarding him with defiant eyes. Was this really Vagualame? Was he an impostor?
Vagualame read her thoughts.
”Bobinette, you are nothing but a fool!” announced the old accordion player: ”The man arrested at your place was a detective, who had got himself up like me to take you in!... You let him trick you! You are an imbecile!”
Bobinette stopped.
”But then ... if a detective made himself up to resemble you, it means they know you are guilty! It means they are after you! Why, it's a mad thing you are doing, coming to meet me in that rig out! Why have you not disguised yourself?”
Vagualame smiled.
”Possibly I have reason for it, a plan you know nothing about, Bobinette!... But, let us return to the false Vagualame. How was it you did not detect the fraud, if only by the voice?... How is it you have not guessed the truth since?... When you received my telegram at Rouen it should have been as clear as daylight to you!... Eh!”
Bobinette kept silence.
”Well, we will not dwell on the past,” declared Vagualame, with an air of magnanimity: ”Fortunately your extraordinary simplicity has not had any particular consequences--save the stupid way you let them get hold of the gun piece, and allowed the false Corporal Vinson to escape!”...
In a menacing tone he said: ”We will return to that question later.”
”But,” faltered Bobinette: ”How could I act otherwise?”
Vagualame threw her such a look, a look so charged with fierce contempt that she could no longer doubt that she was face to face with her master. This master would not allow argument, discussion: well she knew that!
She screwed up her courage to ask:
”How did you learn my address?”
”That is my business!” he declared: ”What I want to know I get to know--you must have seen that by this time!”
”How is it, then, you called at _The Crying Calf_ to-day?... Geoffrey did not know you: he alone knew I was coming to see him!... You followed me?”
”Suppose I did follow you?”... Vagualame's tone changed: it became imperious.
”Have you quite finished asking me silly questions?... I consider it is my turn to put a question or two to you--What are you doing?”
Bobinette bent her head.
”You have a right to know,” she murmured: ”When you sent me that letter, after I took refuge in La Chapelle, telling me to go to the house of a Madame Olga Dimitroff and present myself for the post of companion, I went. She engaged me. I am still with her.”
”To take refuge in an hotel was an idiotic thing to do, Bobinette....
The police could easily have nabbed you there if they had had a mind to. That is why I sent you to one of my old friends--to a person to whom I could recommend you!... Well, Bobinette, you will have to leave that house!”