“Yes, that’s one blessing. I told her as they took her away. ‘Rougette,’ I said, ‘the day you come out of the hospital is the day of our marriage. You must not think of anything else. I’ll devote my life to you.’ Could I do less, old man? We may talk cynically about women, but when it comes to the point, we’re all ready to die for ’em. I’d have given anything last night if it had been me. It’s always the innocent that suffer.”
“Every one is talking of it this morning,” I observed. “It’s in all the papers, but no one suspects who did it. Are you going to tell the police?”
“No, how can I? I’m indirectly to blame. But oh! if I can lay my hands on that girl!” He broke off with a harsh laugh that was more eloquent of vengeful rage than any words.
“Well, cheer up, old man. I applaud your action in marrying Rougette. And perhaps she won’t be so terribly disfigured after all.”
So I accompanied Lorrimer on his way to the hospital, and we were going down the Boul’ Mich’ when suddenly he turned.
“Let me leave you now. Here’s that blithering little Bébérose coming to buttonhole me and tell me of his love affairs. I’m not in a fit state to listen at present. You just talk to him, will you?”
So I was left to interview Monsieur Bébérose whom I had met once or twice in his capacity as art patron, and the proud purchaser (for an absurdly small price) of one of Lorrimer’s masterpieces. Monsieur Bébérose is a retired manufacturer of Arles sausages, a man of fifty, and reputed to be wealthy. He is a little, overfed man, not unremotely resembling the animal from whose succulence his money has been made. Besides the crimson button of the Legion, he wears as a watch-charm a large gall-stone that had been extracted from him by a skilful surgeon. On the fore-front of his head is a faint fringe of hair, trimmed and parted like an incipient moustache; otherwise his skull would make an excellent skating-rink for the flies. Add to this that he is a widower, on the look-out for a second wife.
“Well,” I hailed him, “you’re not married yet?”
Monsieur Bébérose shook his head mournfully. “No, things do not march at present. You remember I told you about Mademoiselle Juliette. Well, I like that girl very much. I have known her since she was a baby. I think I like to marry her. So I ask the mother. Well, she put me off. She say she decide in a week. Then in a week I go back and she tell me that she think Mademoiselle Juliette too young to marry me but she have a girl friend, Mademoiselle Lucille, who want to get married. Perhaps I would be pleased with the friend.”
Here Monsieur Bébérose sighed deeply.