“It is here!” said M. Floçon, as he turned the handle unceremoniously without knocking. “Enter.”
A man was seated at a small desk in the centre of a big bare room, who rose at once at the sight of M. Floçon, and bowed deferentially without speaking.
“Baume,” said the Chief, shortly, “I wish to leave this gentleman with you. Make him at home,”—the words were spoken in manifest irony,—“and when I call you, bring him at once to my cabinet. You, monsieur, you will oblige me by staying here.”
Sir Charles nodded carelessly, took the first chair that offered, and sat down by the fire.
He was to all intents and purposes in custody, and he examined his gaoler at first wrathfully, then curiously, struck with his rather strange figure and appearance. Baume, as the Chief had called him, was a short, thick-set man with a great shock head sunk in low between a pair of enormous shoulders, betokening great physical strength; he stood on very thin but greatly twisted bow legs, and the quaintness of his figure was emphasized by the short black blouse or smock-frock he wore over his other clothes like a French artisan.
He was a man of few words, and those not the most polite in tone, for when the General began with a banal remark about the weather, M. Baume replied, shortly:
“I wish to have no talk;” and when Sir Charles pulled out his cigarette-case, as he did almost automatically from time to time when in any situation of annoyance or perplexity, Baume raised his hand warningly and grunted:
“Not allowed.”
“Then I’ll be hanged if I don’t smoke in spite of every man jack of you!” cried the General, hotly, rising from his seat and speaking unconsciously in English.
“What’s that?” asked Baume, gruffly. He was one of the detective staff, and was only doing his duty according to his lights, and he said so with such an injured air that the General was pacified, laughed, and relapsed into silence without lighting his cigarette.