Essarès stopped. He thought for a moment and resumed:
“You still have a second key to each of the rooms which they use as bedrooms? Is that so? . . . Good. And you have duplicates of the keys that open the cupboards in the walls of those rooms, haven’t you? . . . Capital. Well, as soon as they get to sleep, or rather as soon as you are certain that they are sound asleep, go in and search the cupboards. Each of them is bound to hide his share of the booty there. You’ll find it quite easily. It’s the four pocket-books which you know of. Put them in your bag, clear out as fast as you can and join me.”
There was another pause. This time it was Essarès listening. He replied:
“What’s that you say? Rue Raynouard? Here? Join me here? Why, you must be mad! Do you imagine that I can stay now, after the colonel’s given me away? No, go and wait for me at the hotel, near the station. I shall be there by twelve o’clock or one in the afternoon, perhaps a little later. Don’t be uneasy. Have your lunch quietly and we’ll talk things over . . . Hullo! Did you hear? . . . Very well, I’ll see that everything’s all right. Good-by for the present.”
The conversation was finished; and it looked as if Essarès, having taken all his measures to recover possession of the four million francs, had no further cause for anxiety. He hung up the receiver, went back to the lounge-chair in which he had been tortured, wheeled it round with its back to the fire, sat down, turned down the bottoms of his trousers and pulled on his socks and shoes, all a little painfully and accompanied by a few grimaces, but calmly, in the manner of a man who has no need to hurry.
Coralie kept her eyes fixed on his face.
“I really ought to go,” thought Captain Belval, who felt a trifle embarrassed at the thought of overhearing what the husband and wife were about to say.
Nevertheless he stayed. He was not comfortable in his mind on Coralie’s account.
Essarès fired the first shot:
“Well,” he asked, “what are you looking at me like that for?”