“Nouna! Nouna!”
The door opened slowly; but as he rushed towards it he met only Madame Barbier, the landlady, who, scared and shivering, tried to retreat. But George caught her by the wrists and forced her to answer him.
“Where is my wife?”
“Oh, monsieur, monsieur, don’t you know? Have you missed her? Don’t look like that, or I cannot, I will not answer you, monsieur; you frighten me; it is not my fault, I have done nothing, nothing at all.”
George put his hand to his head with a muttered curse on the woman’s torturing idiotcy, and then forced himself to speak to her calmly.
“My dear madame, surely you can see I don’t want to frighten you. But for God’s sake speak out.”
Slowly, hesitatingly, paralysed by a sudden fear that the news she had would prove even more disquieting than suspense, she spoke.
“When you were gone, monsieur, and the huissiers were still here”—George started; he had forgotten the huissiers, and their disappearance had not troubled him—“a gentleman called, monsieur, saying he was a friend of yours, and he asked for you; and when I said you were out he said he would see madame. She came out to see him, monsieur, and shrieked when she met him; I know, monsieur, because I followed her into the room after helping her to dress, and she told me to stay.”
George held himself as still as stone, afraid of stopping the recital.
“A dark-skinned man,” he said, not questioningly.