“Found it,” was all he said, and turning round, resumed his hammering.
Bibi looked hard at the middle of Paul’s back. It would have been a great pleasure to him to have climbed up and thrown that fellow off the roof, but there were things that Bibi wanted to find out. The rain drops fell on his face, and suggested shelter. Bibi mounted the path and entered the doorway of the Café de la Victoire. He poked his head into the room on the right of the passage and saw stacked in the farther room all that timber and galvanized iron that Paul and Manon had salved from the huts.
It was pure chance, but Brent’s hammer took it into its head to slide off one of the rafters and land on the stone floor of the passage within two feet of where Louis Blanc was standing. Brent looked down and saw Bibi, and Bibi was looking up at him.
“What do you mean by that?”
“It was an accident,” said Brent.
“Nicely arranged.”
“Well, you have no business there, anyway, monsieur.”
Bibi stooped, picked up the hammer, and sent it whirling into the ruins across the road.
“Voilà!”
He stamped into the other rooms and looked at everything at his leisure, while Paul came down the ladder to find his hammer. He knew the sort of man that Bibi was, and he had no intention of letting himself be tricked into a rough and tumble with him. Such men are best held at arm’s length by a show of good temper.