“No, not much the worse certainly, seeing as how she escaped in time; but it was touch and go; she got back here terribly upset, poor child! That’s why she won’t see anybody to-day
.”
Fandor seized the opportunity to cut short the conversation.
“I see; but she will see me, for sure, as I’ve come about decorating the rooms ... what floor does she live on?”
“Fifth floor, left ... bell with a green bell-pull ... But just wait till I tell you all about it. Just think, it was on the Boulevard de Belleville it all happened.”
“Boulevard de Belleville!... yesterday evening?”
“Yes, yesterday evening—”
The young man had asked the question in such a strange voice that Mme. Doulenques felt her earlier doubts more than justified.
“Now, whatever’s the matter?” she demanded, “One would think you’d been taken ill.”
Indeed, Fandor had turned deadly pale as he listened to the woman’s story. The coincidence was so startling—Elisabeth Dollon, the very evening before, assailed by apaches on the Boulevard de Belleville; then, on the same boulevard, not far away no doubt, he, Fandor, defending an unknown woman against police officers ...