"Good," said M. Fournier. He sat forward in his chair and rubbed the palms of his hands together. "Now listen! There was another Englishman who came in May. He came to my shop, though the shutter was on the window and the shop closed."
"Who was he?" asked Mrs. Warriner.
"I cannot guess."
"Tell me what he was like."
"Ah! there's the trouble. Neither of us saw him. Warriner heard his voice, that is all. And a voice? There is no clue more deceptive. The one thing Warriner is sure of is that he had never heard the voice before."
"But what was it that he heard?"
"I tell you. Warriner came down to Tangier that very morning from the country. He travelled as always in the dress of a Moor, for he speaks their tongues, no Moor better, and our little business, you understand, needs secrecy. I closed my shop, shuttered the window, locked the door. Warriner told me he had arranged with the sheikhs of the Berber tribes to deliver so many Winchesters, so much ammunition, within a certain period. The period was short; Warriner's boat, the Ten Brothers, was waiting at Tarifa. I leave him to change his dress and shave his beard, while I go down to the harbour and hire a felucca to put him over to Tarifa. But Warriner forgot to lock the door behind me. In a minute or two he hear a hand scrape softly, oh so softly, up the door towards the latch. For a second he stood, with the razor in his hand like this," and the Belgian, in the absorption of his narrative began to act the scene, "looking at the latch, waiting for it to rise, and listening. Then he remembered that he had not locked the door. He crept on tip-toe towards it; just as he reached it he heard a loud English voice shout to him violently, 'Look out!' That phrase is a menace, eh?" he stopped to ask.
"It might be. It would more naturally be a warning," said Mrs. Warriner.
"In either case it means an enemy. As he shouted Warriner's hand was already on the key. Warriner turn the lock, and immediately the Englishman batter and knock at the door, but he could not get in, and after a little he went away. Ah! how often we have wondered who that man was, and why he shouted out his threat and tried to force the door. To know that you have one enemy at your heels, but you cannot pick him out because you have not seen his face! That frightens me, Madame Warriner. I am a coward, and it is no wonder that it frightens me." The perspiration broke out on Fournier's forehead as he made his frank confession. "But it frightens Warriner too, who is no coward. Often and often have I seen him lift up a finger, so," he suited the action to the word, "when a new voice speak within his hearing, and listen, listen, listen, to make sure whether that was the voice which shouted through the door or no. But a voice! You cannot be certain you recognise it, unless you can recognise also the face of the man to whom it belongs. A singer's voice, yes! Perhaps you might know that again though you heard it for the first time blindfold. But a voice that merely speaks or shouts, no!"
M. Fournier picked up his hat and rose from his chair. Miranda rose too, and they stood face to face with one another under the awning.