"Ever since the café opened, about ten years ago."
"Do you live here in the house?"
"Yes, monsieur. I have a room in the fifth story."
"Do you know all the inmates of the house?"
"Either by name, or by sight, yes, monsieur, but that is all. I am the only waiter here, and I have no time to visit."
After a moment of painful hesitation, during which the stranger's features betrayed the most poignant anxiety, he said to the waiter, in a slightly husky voice:
"Who lives on the fourth floor?"
"A lady, monsieur."
"Nobody else?"
"No, monsieur."