“Is there a boarding school at Trepot?”
“No, but there is one at Eu—I went to the school at Eu.”
He motioned me to follow him.
“We will go there,” he said. “I can’t talk here. There is too much of a storm.”
* * * * *
In another half hour we were at Eu. At the foot of the Rue des Marroniers our carriage rolled over the pavements of the big, cold, empty place, as the coachman announced his arrival by cracking his whip, filling the dead town with the noise of the snapping leather.
Soon we heard the sound of a bell—that of the school, Rouletabille told me—and then everything was quiet again. We alighted and the horse and carriage stood motionless upon the street. The driver had gone into a saloon. We entered the cool shades of a high Gothic church which faced upon the square. Rouletabille cast a glance at the castle—a red brick structure, crowned with an immense Louis XIII roof—a mournful facade which seemed to weep over the glory of departed princes. The young reporter gazed sorrowfully at the square battlements of the City Hall, which extended toward us the hostile lance of its soiled and weather-beaten flag; at the Cafe de Paris; at the silent houses; at the shops and the library. Was it there that the boy had bought those first new books for which the Lady in Black had paid?
“Nothing has changed.”
An old dog, colorless and shaggy, upon the library steps, stretched himself lazily on his frozen paws.
“Cham! Cham!” called Rouletabille. “Oh, I remember him well. It is Cham—it is my old Cham.”