"Quickly, then!"
"A lady occupies the third floor with her servants—while my master, Beudant, and I dwell on the second floor——" He paused.
"And the ground floor, Jussieu?" I cried impatiently.
"It contains only living rooms, m'sieur. No one sleeps there."
I nodded, for I saw that he had told me the truth. Uncocking the revolver I seized it by the barrel and, bending forward, before he could guess of my intention, I struck him a violent blow over the temple with the butt. A white man's skull would have been shivered into fragments. Jussieu merely sighed, but a second blow, more powerfully delivered still, rendered him insensible. Forcing his jaws agape, I gagged him with a towel, and afterwards ransacked his pockets. They contained a bunch of keys, a few gold pieces, and a handful of silver. I had scarcely bestowed his possessions about my person when a knock sounded on the door.
"Who is there?" I demanded, striding forward.
"It is I, monsieur, Bertrand du Gazet," answered a muffled voice.
Cautiously opening the door I peered out, and saw standing in the passage without the little old man who had taken me to the gambling house. His hands were full of notes and gold.
"It is your money I have brought you as you requested," he observed, smiling genially. "You were foolish to leave so soon, monsieur. Fortune does not often so bountifully confer her favours. See, here are more than seven thousand francs. Indeed, you were wrong to run away, monsieur."
I was in a quandary. I could not admit my unwelcome visitor, and I did not like to drive him away, since he had come to do me a kindness. Putting on a fine air of frankness, I said to him in low tones: "My dear Du Gazet, I cannot thank you as I ought just now—because I have a visitor, you understand."