It can easily be imagined that I put the two treasonable acts together, and accused Emma of a secret complicity.
But the Manager of the Hotel, thinking he had to do with audacious thieves, went off to the police-office. He came back, saying that they had found in a little street of the faubourg, a car with the number 234XY, which had been abandoned, as he thought, by thieves, for want of petrol. The tank was empty.
“Ah! just so,” said I to myself. Klotz wanted to run away. He forgot about the exhaustion of the petrol, and there he is, paralyzed.
I kept the true version of the incident to myself, and advised the mechanic to push the car to the train, without making the engine go.
“Promise me this,” I insisted, “it is very important. My train is due, I must be off. Off you go, and remember, no petrol.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES
And now, here I am, in this house in the Avenue Victor Hugo, which I had taken for Emma, and I am alone with my strange memories, since she preferred to sacrifice her intoxicating and lucrative beauty to M. Alcide. Let us say no more about it!
February is beginning. The fire is flaming behind me with the flapping sound of a waving flag.