“Good morning, Doctor Bayliss,” said I, and walked away. I turned as I reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back. He was still standing there, staring at me.
That afternoon I spent in my room. There is little use describing my feelings. That she was in Paris I was sure now. That Bayliss had seen her I was equally sure. But why had he spoken and looked as he did when I first spoke of Heathcroft's story? What had he meant by saying something or other was “awful?” And why had he seemed so astonished, why had he laughed in that strange way when I had said she was singing in a church?
That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
“Is there any building here in Paris,” I asked, “a building in which people sing, which is called an abbey? One that is not a church or an abbey, but is called that?”
Louis looked at me in an odd way. He seemed a bit embarrassed, an embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
“Monsieur asks the question,” he said, smiling. “It was in my mind last night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church. There is a place called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but—” he hesitated, shrugged and then added, “but L'Abbaye is not a church. No, it is not that.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A restaurant, Monsieur. A cafe chantant at Montmartre.”
Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken. At the hour when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the Paris of which the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring, Montmartre—or that section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated—begins to open its eyes. At ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the square and pulled up at the curb, the electric signs were blazing, the sidewalks were, if not yet crowded, at least well filled, and the sounds of music from the open windows of The Dead Rat and the other cafes with the cheerful names were mingling with noises of the street.
Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak. He had told me that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite useless. Midnight was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I would find it rather dull, triste. But after that—Ah, Monsieur would, at least, be entertained.