“Pouf! It is hot,” the Frenchman went on, “though I take off my coat and open the window. A little rest will be agreeable. But I ask for the hammer again, until I finish; I wish to finish this night.”
Promising to bring the hammer back in a few minutes Martin went down to the basement. But it was more than half an hour later, and dusk was already falling, before he was able to return: Susan’s job had taken longer than he had expected.
This time there was no answer to his tap on Mounseer’s door, nor any sound from within. He waited awhile, then tapped again. A sleepy voice asked who was there, and when Martin was at last admitted, the old gentleman apologised for the delay.
“It is the terrible heat,” he said, spreading out his hands. “I fall asleep; I am old, and the labour fatigues me. How I would like to be young, like you! Labour is light for the young.”
“But I can’t get any work, sir,” said Martin.
“Courage, my young friend. It will come. Seat yourself, and tell me where you go to-day; I am very much interested.”
Sitting on a chair facing the open window, Martin began to relate his wanderings of the day, while the Frenchman took the hammer and chisel and worked away at the bar of wood by the light of a candle.
While Martin was speaking he fancied he saw something move just outside the window. Though somewhat startled, he had the presence of mind to go on with his story, and a few moments afterwards was astonished to see a hat appear above the edge of the window-sill, at a corner.
It rose slowly; the dim light of the candle at the farther end of the room showed him a man’s face—a face seamed with a scar across the temple. So great was his surprise at recognising one of the men who had tried to steal his parcel that he jumped up with a sudden cry.
Instantly the face disappeared, and by the time Martin and the Frenchman reached the window the man was half-way down the gutter-pipe up which he had climbed.