There was no apparent reason within my room—but, hark! what was that? Clearly and distinctly, as if there were no obstructing walls, I could hear the noise made by the tenant of the neighboring rooms as he prepared himself to retire for the night. The sound of each movement fell on my ear, in my then state of tension, with all the clearness of a bell. I could even hear his muttered conversation. The latter seemed to be of so strange and disjointed a character that, my curiosity overcoming me, I stooped and applied my ear to the keyhole of the oaken door which divided our rooms, believing that some demented person had gained wrongful access to the adjoining rooms.
My view was limited to a few seconds, at the end of which the other door which fronted the one in my own wall was abruptly closed. But in that limited time my eye had garnered a terrible harvest, for in the muttering inmate of the adjoining room I had identified—or imagined I had identified—the white-bearded murderer as described by all who had seen him; not indeed identified to me by the whiteness of his hair and his age only, but by the blood-stained hands which he removed from his gloves and by the weapon which he laid upon his table.
What to do I knew not, and, horrified beyond measure, I lay in my bed, petrified with apprehension, waiting for the dawn.
With the first glimmer of dawn I sent next door for my friend, and explained to him my midnight experiences.
“It is very strange,” he murmured. “Very strange. Who do you think lives opposite to you?” From the glance he gave me it was evident that my friend thought I had taken leave of my senses. “Only the old Frenchman you told me of,” I replied. “Old Frenchman?” he returned with an air of puzzled surprise and interrogation. “Did I say an old Frenchman lived over against you? You misunderstood me, I think; he occupies the rooms to the rear.” “Well, it was there that I heard the noise and saw the man,” I replied.
A look of pain and perplexity had come into my friend’s face, and for a few minutes he sat in silence, apparently lost in thought. Then he rose to his feet and turned towards the door, adding as he opened it, “As soon as you have breakfasted I would like you to accompany me to the police station. I think you ought to tell the officers what you saw.”
There was still the same look of puzzled uncertainty in my friend’s face, as well as an anxious glance, as if for my welfare, but there was also a look of unutterable resolution as he said, as if to himself, “There must be no hesitation; this thing has to be gone through.”
An hour later Pasquale and I arrived at the police station, and half an hour afterwards two police officers, two detectives, Pasquale and myself left for my friend’s house.
On the way thither Pasquale stepped aside to make a small purchase. “Go straight on; I will follow you in a minute. I have left my pass-key in another pocket, so you must knock for admittance.”
“Show these gentlemen up to the third floor.” Such was the landlady’s orders to the servant when we requested to be shown to Mr. Pasquale’s rooms, where we were to mature our plans.