“I am going to Grey this afternoon. I am going to get some articles I need. If I cannot get them there, I shall push on to Nanthel. Have you any commissions to give me?”
Fortunately, they had none, otherwise everything would have come to grief.
By this means I could go out for a quarter-of-an-hour, and bring in my purchases from the bush, as if I had gone to make them in the village.
Now, one might reckon on the journey from Fonval to Grey and back taking about an hour-and-a-quarter, so I had an hour at my disposal.
I go out, leave my car in the thicket not far from the hiding-place in the bushes, then come into the garden again over the wall. The ivy on one side, and the trellis on the other, made it easier. Keeping close to the castle wall, I reached the hall.
And now, I am in the drawing-room, with the door carefully shut behind me. In case I might need to make a dash, however, I thought it prudent not to turn the key, and now I am spying, with my eye to the lock of the yellow chamber.
The keyhole was a large one. It made a sort of loop-hole through which a keen air was blowing—and what do I see?
The room was dark and cut into layers by the shutters. A slanting ray seemed to be supporting the window with its column, and the motes of dust were dancing about in it as the worlds dance about in space.
On the carpet the laths of the shutters projected their lines. Here was a den! A gypsy lair! Here and there, clothes on the ground. A plate with scraps, and near it a piece of filth. One would have said it was a hermit’s haunt.
Ah! and what was that which moved on the bed? There he is, the recluse! It’s a man! He was lying face downwards amongst the disorder of the bolster and the quilt, with his head leaning on his arms. He had on only a nightshirt and trousers. His beard was of several weeks’ growth, and, like his hair, which was rather short, was almost of a whitish-yellow.