The old man grunted. “I don’t know. I know nothing. There was a bomb fell in the Avenue Kléber.” He raised his head and sniffed like a shaggy old dog. “Smell,” he commanded. “You can smell the bomb.”
It was true. The faint odor of picric acid filled the damp night air. As they walked the odor grew more and more intense. In the darkness Ellen’s guide pointed to the left.
“The bomb fell over there,” he observed, “full in the street.”
“Who is this Madame Nozières?” asked Ellen.
“I don’t know,” her companion repeated. “I know nothing. She has an apartment. She comes there sometimes. She is rich. She is generous. She does not live there always. She only comes now and then ... when Monsieur has permission from the front.”
“Monsieur Nozières?”
In the darkness, the old man was silent for a time. He was breathless from the effort of their haste. “No,” he replied. “Monsieur ... your brother.”
This then was the rendezvous for which Fergus had left the house in the Rue Raynouard. There was some one then—some woman—who had the power of taking him from her on the very night he had returned after so many years. It must have been strong, this force, stronger than the power which Callendar himself exerted. She understood his persistence. Against such a power, she was, of course, helpless.
“It is here,” said her guide abruptly. “Follow me.”
He led the way through a corridor into an open court filled with summer furniture, stacked now in the corners against the empty stone urns. In the dim light that filtered through the shutters on the far side, she was able to discern the outlines of chairs and tables, piled helter-skelter, as if they too had felt the force of a bomb that hurled them into a corner.