He asked the waiter:
"What does he do?"
"I really can't say. He's a rum cove . . . He's always quite alone. . . . He never talks to anybody . . . We here don't even know the sound of his voice. . . . He points his finger at the dishes on the bill of fare which he wants. . . . He has finished in twenty minutes; then he pays and goes. . . ."
"And he comes back again?"
"Every three or four days. He's not regular."
"It's he, it cannot be any one else," said Lupin to himself. "It's Malreich. There he is . . . breathing . . . at four steps from me. There are the hands that kill. There is the brain that gloats upon the smell of blood. There is the monster, the vampire! . . ."
And, yet, was it possible? Lupin had ended by looking upon Malreich as so fantastic a being that he was disconcerted at seeing him in the flesh, coming, going, moving. He could not explain to himself how the man could eat bread and meat like other men, drink beer like any one else: this man whom he had pictured as a foul beast, feeding on live flesh and sucking the blood of his victims.
"Come away, Doudeville."
"What's the matter with you, governor? You look quite white!"
"I want air. Come out."