“Who is it?” he asked the nurse.
“I don’t know, captain. . . . It’s a man’s voice; he seemed to want you urgently. The bell had been ringing some time. I was downstairs, in the kitchen. . . .”
Before Patrice’s eyes there rose a vision of the telephone in the Rue Raynouard, in the big room at the Essarès’ house. He could not help wondering if there was anything to connect the two incidents.
He went down one flight of stairs and along a passage. The telephone was through a small waiting-room, in a room that had been turned into a linen-closet. He closed the door behind him.
“Hullo! Captain Belval speaking. What is it?”
A voice, a man’s voice which he did not know, replied in breathless, panting tones:
“Ah! . . . Captain Belval! . . . It’s you! . . . Look here . . . but I’m almost afraid that it’s too late. . . . I don’t know if I shall have time to finish. . . . Did you get the key and the letter? . . .”
“Who are you?” asked Patrice.
“Did you get the key and the letter?” the voice insisted.
“The key, yes,” Patrice replied, “but not the letter.”