“It was Monsieur Dupont, the assistant chief of the Tournayville police.”
“What was he doing here?” asked the other slowly, as though trying to puzzle out the answer to his own question. “Why was he asking me all those questions?”
Raymond, tight-lipped, looked the man in the eyes.
“We've had enough of this, haven't we?” he challenged evenly. “I thought at first you were still irrational. You're not—that is now quite evident. Well—we are alone—what is your object? You had a chance to tell Dupont your story!”
A pitiful, stunned look crept into the man's face. He stretched out his hand over the coverlet toward Raymond. “You—you, too, monsieur!” he said numbly. “What does it mean? What does it mean?”
It startled Raymond. There was trickery here, it could be nothing else—and yet there was sincerity too genuine to be assumed in the other's words and acts. Raymond sat back in his chair, and for a long minute, brows knitted, studied the man. It was possible, of course, that the other might not have recognised him—they had only been together for a few moments in the smoking compartment of the train, and, dressed now as a priest, that might well be the case—but why not the story then?—why not the simple statement that he was the new curé coming to the village, that he had been struck down and—bah! What was the man's game! Well, he would force the issue, that was all! He leaned over the bed; and, his hand upon the other's, his fingers closed around the man's wrist until, beneath their tips, they could gauge the throb of the other's pulse. And his eyes, steel-hard, were on the other.
“I am the curé,” he said, in a low, level tone, “of St. Marleau—while Father Allard is away. My name is—François Aubert.”
“And mine,” said the man, “is”—he shook his head—“mine is”—his face grew piteously troubled—“it is strange—I do not remember that either.”
There had been no tell-tale nervous flutter of the man's pulse. Raymond's hand fell away from the other's wrist. What was this curious, almost uncanny presentiment that was creeping upon him! Was it possible that the man was telling the truth! Was it possible that—his own brain was whirling now—he steadied himself, forcing himself to speak.
“Did you not read the card that Dupont showed you?”