“Yes,” said the Twitcher. “You play a safe game all right. As for me, give me the traversals....”
Here the conversation became too technical for Hugh to follow. Presently the Twitcher said to the S. S.:
“Come on. Let’s go and scratch.”
As they went away, the Rat installed himself in a comfortable chair and called for a Dubonnet. Then he lit a cigarette from a yellow packet, blew the smoke blissfully through his nostrils, sipped his apéritif, and seemed content with all the world.
“A sinister chap,” Hugh thought, and ceased to look at him. Suddenly he heard a gasp of dismay.
The Rat was staring out of the window, his sallow face livid, his hands clutching the table edge. Then he dived through the little door at the back of the restaurant and disappeared. Astonished, Hugh followed the direction of the man’s gaze. All he saw was a mild old priest peering rather curiously at the house. Hugh watched wonderingly; but the priest, after lingering a little, went slowly away, and the Rat did not finish his apéritif.
Among the other boarders were two Swedish women, mother and daughter. The mother was short and fat, and the daughter, tall and thin; but both were blonde and had shiny, red faces. They dressed in black satin, with gold chains round their necks and diamond rings on every available finger. They ate gluttonously, and spoke a harsh, gabbling tongue. Although they were evidently rich, they gambled greedily for five franc pieces.
Occasionally Hugh saw the girl with the bright, heaping hair. Sometimes at meals he would see her slip into a remote corner, quiet as a mouse. She looked at no one, kept her head down, ate very little and stole out again as softly as she had come.
One day he questioned Terese, the waitress, about her.
“Ah,” said Terese, “you’re asking me something. All I can tell you is that her name on the register is Margot Leblanc. She’s a queer one. Never speaks to a soul. She spends her time between the church and the Casino, between praying and gambling. I can’t make her out.”