"We must go now," he said hurriedly. "I suppose it is quite easy to leave by the way we came in—through the engine-room?"
"One moment, monsieur, one moment! Before showing you out I must put Number 4 back with his other companions. There is no fear of his being lonely, poor man! We had five brought in this morning."
They had not long to wait before the concierge joined them again.
"Won't monsieur and madame stay and just see everything else there is to be seen?" he asked eagerly. "We have the most interesting relics of great criminals, notably of Troppman. Troppman was before my time, monsieur, but the day that his seven victims were publicly exposed there—" he pointed with his thumb to the inconspicuous door through which he had just wheeled Number 4—"ah, that was a red-letter day for the Morgue! Eighteen thousand people came to gaze on those seven bodies. And it was lucky, monsieur, that in those days we were open to the public, for it was the landlord of their hotel who recognised the poor creatures."
He was now preceding his two visitors through the operating theatre where are held the post-mortems. From thence he led them into the hall where they had first gained admission. "Well, monsieur, if you really do not care to see our relics—?" He opened the great door through which so few living men and women ever pass.
Gerald Burton and Nancy Dampier walked out into the sunlight, and the last thing they saw of the Morgue was the smiling face of the concierge—it was not often that he received ten francs for doing his simple duty.
"Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!" he said gaily. And as the courteous old French mode of adieu fell upon their ears, Gerald Burton felt an awful sensation of horror, of oppression, yes and of dread, steal over him.
Nancy Dampier, looking up at her companion, suddenly forgot herself. "Mr. Burton," she exclaimed, her voice full of concern, "I'm afraid this has made you feel ill? I oughtn't to have let you come here!" And it was she who in her clear, low voice told the cabman the address of the Hôtel Saint Ange.
Gerald Burton muttered a word of half-angry excuse. He was keenly ashamed of what he took to be his lack of manliness.
But during the weeks, aye and the months that followed he found himself constantly haunted by the gentle, ironic words of farewell uttered by the concierge of the Morgue: "Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!"