"Ah, my lad, I am glad to see you again," he said. "Were you not at Sierre last night with the valet of my friend, Mr. Faikes?"
Philip looked up quickly.
"Of your friend, Sir—?"
Benny did not appear to notice it.
"The Englishman staying at Vermala," he persisted; and then he asked: "Do you know him also?"
Philip answered as quickly.
"Yes, I know this Englishman, sir; he killed my brother, Eugène. Am I to understand that he is a friend of yours?"
Benny grabbed the man by the arm, and began to walk him to and fro upon the narrow path. He was acting now with all the art he could command. Yes, he had seen the Englishman several times; was he the man who struck the officer, Eugène Gaillarde, on the hillside? Who would have thought it? But then, to be sure, no one knew the fellow very well: a sour-tempered bully, who had come from Cannes, and gone, they said, to Paris. Had Monsieur Philip heard that the Englishman had gone to Paris? Well, it was so, and he, Benny, had seen him at the station—indeed, he had driven him some way on the road. It would be useful to remember that. Perhaps Monsieur Philip would be glad of the information?
The young man heard the strange tale to the end, but he expressed neither surprise nor gratitude. He had come to Andana to learn what he could, and when his work was done he would know the Englishman's story and where to seek him. "And then, monsieur," he added with almost savage conviction, "I shall arrest him with my own hands."
Benny did not argue with him; he saw that this idea obsessed him, and that words were vain. His own acting, clever as it was, appeared to have made no impression whatsoever upon the gendarme, and when the man left him, it was to go on with the same quiet step and unchanging resolution, up toward the height where his brother had perished. Benny, however, stood for a little while at the door of the chalet looking down toward Lily's house. Did she believe the story he had told her with such poor wit?