“I can only say one thing,” said Bernier as he turned to leave us. “And that is that I don’t care for this prince at all. He is too soft spoken and too blonde and his eyes are too blue. They say that he is a Russian. That may be, but there are some who leave the country because they have to. But he comes and goes in a strange fashion and takes no leave beforehand. The time before the last that he was invited here to luncheon Madame and Monsieur waited and waited for him and dared not begin without him. Well, after an hour or two they received a wire, begging them to excuse him because he had missed the train. The dispatch was sent from Moscow.”
And Bernier, chuckling, returned to his vantage post.
Our eyes remained fixed upon the beach. Mme. Edith and her prince continued their stroll toward the grotto of Romeo and Juliet; Old Bob suddenly ceased to gesticulate, descended from the Barma Grande and came toward the château, entered the gate, crossed the outer court, and we saw, even from the height of the platform of the tower, that he had ceased to smile. Old Bob’s face had become sadness itself. He was silent. He passed beneath the arch of the postern. We called him, he did not seem to hear us. He carried before him in the crook of his arm his “oldest skull in the world,” and all at once we saw him fly into the fiercest of passions. He addressed the worst of insults to the skull. He descended into the Round Tower and we heard the mutterings of his wrath for moments after he was out of sight. Then heavy blows resounded. One would have said that he was hurling himself against the wall.
At this moment six strokes resounded from the old clock of the New Castle. And at almost the same instant a clap of thunder echoed over the sea. And the line of the horizon grew black.
Then a groom of the stables, Walter, a brave, stupid fellow who was incapable of a single idea, but who had shown for years past the blind devotion of a brute toward his master, Old Bob, passed under the postern of the gardener, entered into the Court of Charles the Bold, and came to us. He held in his hand a letter which he gave to Rouletabille. He handed me another and continued on his way toward the Square Tower.
Rouletabille, calling after him, inquired what errand was taking him to the Square Tower. He answered that he was taking the mail for M. and Mme. Darzac to Pere Bernier. He spoke in English for Walter understood no other language; but we spoke it well enough to understand him and make him understand. Walter was charged with distributing the mail because Pere Jacques had no right to leave his lodge on any account. Rouletabille took the letters from the man’s hands and said to him that he would take it in himself.
A few drops of water had begun to fall.
We turned to the door of M. Darzac’s room. Bernier was smoking his pipe in the corridor, sitting astride a chair.
“Is M. Darzac still there?” asked Rouletabille.
“He hasn’t stirred since he went in,” Bernier replied.