A kind of panic seized me as I turned away. Had he, indeed, seen through my artifice? In attempting to blind him, had I merely uncovered my own plan? Or—and my cheeks burned at the thought!—was he so well intrenched that he had no fear of me? Were his plans so well laid that it mattered not to him whither I went or what I did? After all, I had no assurance of success at Etretat—no proof that the fugitives had gone there—no reasonable grounds to believe that we should find them. Perhaps, indeed, Paris would be a better place to look for them; perhaps Martigny's advice had really been well meant.
I passed a moment of heart-rending uncertainty; I saw quite clearly what a little, little chance of success we had. But I shook the feeling off, sought the lower deck, and inquired again for Martigny. At last, the ship's doctor told me that he had seen the sick man safely to a carriage, and had heard him order the driver to proceed to the Hotel Continental.
"And, frankly, Mr. Lester," added the doctor, "I am glad to be so well rid of him. It is most fortunate that he did not die on the voyage. In my opinion, he is very near the end."
I turned away with a lighter heart. From a dying man there could not be much to fear. So I hunted up Mr. Royce, and found him, finally, endeavoring to extract some information from a supercilious official in a gold-laced uniform.
It was, it seemed, a somewhat complicated proceeding to get to Etretat. In half an hour, a train would leave for Beuzeville, where we must transfer to another line to Les Ifs; there a second transfer would be necessary before we could reach our destination. How long would it take? Our informant shrugged his shoulders with fine nonchalance. It was impossible to say. There had been a heavy storm two days before, which had blown down wires and damaged the little spur of track between Les Ifs and the sea. Trains were doubtless running again over the branch, but we could not, probably, reach Etretat before morning.
Amid this jumble of uncertainties, one definite fact remained—a train was to leave in half an hour, which we must take. So we hurried back to the boat, made our declaration, had our boxes examined perfunctorily and passed, bought our tickets, saw our baggage transferred, tipped a dozen people, more or less, and finally were shut into a compartment two minutes before the hour.
Then, in that first moment of inactivity, the fear of Martigny came back upon me. Had he really gone to the hotel? Had he deemed us not worth watching? Or had he watched? Was he on the train with us? Was he able to follow? The more I thought of him, the more I doubted my ability to deceive him.
I looked out cautiously from the window, up and down the platform, but saw no sign of him, and in a moment more we rattled slowly away over the switches. I sank back into my seat with a sigh of relief. Perhaps I had really blinded him!
An hour's run brought us to Beuzeville, where we were dumped out, together with our luggage, in a little frame station. An official informed us that we must wait there three hours for the train for Les Ifs. Beyond that? He could not say. We might possibly reach Etretat next day.