What would be easier than for a man, still young and vigorous, and desperate besides, to climb from the garden to the window of the next room? Moreover, he was staying at the hotel, and would walk in the garden after dark, perhaps ... quite possibly ... undoubtedly, he knew that his uncle’s black bag contained a thick bundle of bank-notes.... And that heavy blow, like the blow of a club on a bald head! ... that stifled cry! ... that fearful oath! and those steps afterwards! That nephew looked like an assassin.... But people do not assassinate in a hotel full of officers. Surely the Englishman, like a wise man, had locked himself in, specially knowing the rogue was about.... He evidently mistrusted him, since he had not wished to accost him bag in hand.... But why allow such hideous thoughts when one is so happy?
Thus did Leon cogitate to himself. In the midst of his thoughts, which I will refrain from analyzing at greater length, and which passed in his mind like so many confused dreams, he fixed his eyes mechanically on the door of communication between the Blue Chamber and the Englishman’s room.
In France, doors fit badly. Between this one and the floor there was a space of nearly an inch. Suddenly, from this space, which was hardly lighted by the reflection from the polished floor, there appeared something blackish and flat, like a knife blade, for the edge which the candlelight caught showed a thin line which shone brightly. It moved slowly in the direction of a little blue-satin slipper, which had been carelessly thrown close to this door. Was it some insect like a centipede?... No, it was no insect. It had no definite shape.... Two or three brown streams, each with its line of light on its edges, had come through into the room. Their pace quickened, for the floor was a sloaping one.... They came on rapidly and touched the little slipper. There was no longer any doubt! It was a liquid, and that liquid, the color of which could now be distinctly seen by the candlelight, was blood! While Leon, paralyzed with horror, watched these frightful streams, the young woman slept on peacefully, her regular breathing warming her lover’s neck and shoulder.
***
The care which Leon had taken in ordering the dinner on their arrival at the inn of N—— adequately proved that he had a pretty level head, a high degree of intelligence and that he could look ahead. He did not in this emergency belie the character we have already indicated. He did not stir, and the whole strength of his mind was strained to keep this resolve in the presence of the frightful disaster which threatened him.
I can imagine that most of my readers, and, above all, my lady readers, filled with heroic sentiments, will blame the conduct of Leon on this occasion for remaining motionless. They will tell me he ought to have rushed to the Englishman’s room and arrested the murderer, or, at least, to have pulled his bell and rung up the people of the hotel. To this I reply that, in the first case, the bells in French inns are only room ornaments, and their cords do not correspond to any metallic apparatus. I would add respectfully, but decidedly, that, if it is wrong to leave an Englishman to die close by one, it is not praiseworthy to sacrifice for him a woman who is sleeping with her head on your shoulder. What would have happened if Leon had made an uproar and roused the hotel? The police, the inspector and his assistant would have come at once. These gentlemen are by profession so curious, that, before asking him what he had seen or heard, they would have questioned him as follows:—
“What is your name? Where are your papers? And what about Madame? What were you doing together in the Blue Chamber? You will have to appear at the Assizes to explain the exact month, at what hour in the night, you were witnesses of this deed.”
Now it was precisely this thought of the inspector and officers of the law which first occurred to Leon’s mind. Everywhere throughout life there are questions of conscience difficult to solve. Is it better to allow an unknown traveller to have his throat cut, or to disgrace and lose the woman one loves?
It is unpleasant to have to propose such a problem. I defy the cleverest person to solve it.
Leon did then what probably most would have done in his place. He never moved.