“Your brother! Monsieur le Ghost of ’Amlet was—pardieu!” exclaimed he, looking hard at his guest, “and he was like you. It was no fault of his ’Amlet did not take the favour, for he play in the first act and make us all laugh. If the other ’Amlets had been so amusing as him, the house would have been full—packed. Ha! now you say it, he was a gentleman, this poor Monsieur le Ghost. He held himself apart from the noisy company, and sulk in a corner, while they laugh, and drink, and sing the song. They were afraid of him, and, mon dieu! they might be—for once, when Monsieur Rosencrantz, as I remember, came and threw some absinthe—my absinthe, messieurs—in his face, Monsieur le Ghost he knocked him down with a blow that sounded—oh, like a clap of the thunder. And this pauvre ghost,” added the man, “was monsieur’s brother! Hélas! he was come down very poor—his coat was rags, and his boots were open to the water of heaven. He eat little. Ah, monsieur, I have deceived you. He cost me not five franc; for, when I remember, he ate nothings—he starve himself.”
“Was he ill?” asked Armstrong.
“Worse,” said the landlord, lowering his voice; “he was in love. I could see it. She laugh and make the mock at him, and play coquet with the others before his face. It nearly killed him—this pauvre ghost. He would have give his hand for a kind glance, but he got it never.”
“Who was the girl?” asked Roger.
“But a child, the minx—fifteen, perhaps sixteen, years, no more. She played the part of a page-boy, and only so because monsieur, her father, was manage the play. He was Frenchman, this monsieur, but mademoiselle was English like her mother. Hélas! monsieur, your brother was deep in love. But there was no hope for him. A fool could see that.”
This was all the host could tell them. He had never heard since of any member of the ill-fated company. He could introduce them to no one who remembered their visit. A few there might be who when appealed to might have recalled the disturbance on the night of the performance, and the absconding of the players. But who they were and what became of them no one could say.
On their return to the hotel at Boulogne at midnight they found a telegram and a letter awaiting them.
The former was from Dr Brandram to Mr Armstrong—
“Come at once.”
The letter was a missive addressed to Roger at Maxfield from London, and forwarded back to Boulogne. It was from Mr Fastnet.