“A gentleman of about fifty, tall and thin, with a long overcoat, coming down to his heels.”
Maxence imagined, from this description, that he recognized his own father. And yet it seemed impossible, after what had happened, that he should dare to show himself on the Boulevard du Temple, where everybody knew him, within a step of the Café Turc, of which he was one of the oldest customers.
“At what o’clock was he here?” he inquired.
“I really can’t tell,” answered the landlady. “I was half asleep at the time; but Fortin can tell us.”
M. Fortin, who looked about twenty years younger than his wife, was one of those small men, blonde, with scanty beard, a suspicious glance, and uneasy smile, such as the Madame Fortins know how to find, Heaven knows where.
“The confectioner had just put up his shutters,” he replied: “consequently, it must have been between eleven and a quarter-past eleven.”
“And didn’t he leave any word?” said Maxence.
“Nothing, except that he was very sorry not to find you in. And, in fact, he did look quite annoyed. We asked him to leave his name; but he said it wasn’t worth while, and that he would call again.”
At the glance which the landlady was throwing toward him from the corner of her eyes, Maxence understood that she had on the subject of that late visitor the same suspicion as himself.
And, as if she had intended to make it more apparent still,