“But, monsieur,” urged Baptiste, hanging back as the other five made a hasty exit, “is it not that monsieur would like a surgeon?”
“Surgeon be damned!” yelled Grey, excitedly. “Out with you!”
But in five minutes they were back again in augmented numbers, with O’Hara accompanied by a sergent de ville at their head.
“They got clean away, the beggars,” the Irishman announced; and then seeing Grey very white, he exclaimed: “Are you hurt, lad? What in God’s name did they do to you, the scalawags?”
“I’m only a little knocked up,” the American answered, with a forced smile; “it was a pretty hard rap on the head they gave me, though.”
The police officer had taken out a notebook, and now he began to ask questions. There was very little, however, that anyone could tell him. Grey described his assailants as accurately as he knew how, and gave him the benefit of his suspicions.
“By whom was the room engaged?” asked the sergent, addressing Baptiste; but Baptiste did not know. Then a messenger was sent to arouse the portier, who had been abed for an hour or more, and when at length he came in, still rubbing his eyes, the information that he gave conveyed nothing.
The room, he said, was taken that evening by a man of ordinary appearance who gave the name of Schmidt. His brother and a friend would occupy it, he told the portier, and he paid one day’s rent in advance.
“Was the man tall or short?” asked the officer.
The portier shrugged his stalwart shoulders.