“You have any further reason for thinking so,” she asked, “beyond your casual inquiries?”
“Well, yes!” he admitted. “I went a little farther than those casual inquiries. It seemed such a meagre report to bring you.”
“Go on!”
“The ordinary person,” he continued smoothly, “would never believe the extreme difficulty with which one collects any particulars as to the home life of a guide. More than once I felt inclined to give up the task in despair. It seemed to me that a guide could have no home, that he must sleep in odd moments on a bench at the Hôtel de Luxe. I tried to fancy a guide in the bosom of his family, carving a Sunday joint, and surrounded by Mrs. Guide and the little Guides. I couldn’t do it. It seemed to me somehow grotesque. Just as I was giving it up in despair, the commissionaire at a night café in Montmartre told me exactly what I wanted to know. He showed me the house where Johnny, as they called him, had a room.”
“You went there?” she asked.
“I did,” he answered.
“It was locked up?”
“On the contrary,” he declared, “Mrs. or Miss Guide was at home, and very pleased to see me.”
“There was a woman there?”
“Assuredly. Whether she is there now or not I cannot say, for it is three days ago, and to me she seemed nearer than that to death!”