At the corner of the Rue Ventomargy the carriage stopped. The way was too narrow and too crowded for traffic. Paul paid the driver. 'Merci, Monsieur! Gardez bien votre chapeau, he said as he drove off. Wondering what the expression could mean, Paul set off with less certain steps down the cobbled alley. The houses overhung perilously on each side, gaily alight from cellar to garret; between them swung lanterns; a shallow gutter ran down the centre of the path. The scene could scarcely have been more sinister had it been built at Hollywood itself for some orgiastic incident of the Reign of Terror. Such a street in England, Paul reflected, would have been saved long ago by Mr Spire and preserved under a public trust for the sale of brass toasting forks, picture postcards, and 'Devonshire teas'. Here the trade was of a different sort. It did not require very much wordly wisdom to inform him of the character of the quarter he was now in. Had he not, guide‑book in hand, traversed the forsaken streets of Pompeii?
No wonder, Paul reflected, that Margot had been so anxious to rescue her protégées from this place of temptation and danger.
A Negro sailor, hideously drunk, addressed Paul in no language known to man, and invited him to have a drink. He hurried on. How typical of Margot that, in all her whirl of luxury, she should still have time to care for the poor girls she had unwittingly exposed to such perils.
Deaf to the polyglot invitations that arose on all sides, Paul pressed on his way. A young lady snatched his hat from his head; he caught a glimpse of her bare leg in a lighted doorway; then she appeared at a window, beckoning him to come in and retrieve it.
All the street seemed to be laughing at him. He hesitated; and then, forsaking, in a moment of panic, both his black hat and his self‑possession, he turned and fled for the broad streets and the tram lines where, he knew at heart, was his spiritual home.
* * *
By daylight the old town had lost most of its terrors. Washing hung out between the houses, the gutters ran with fresh water and the streets were crowded with old women carrying baskets of fish. Chez Alice showed no sign of life, and Paul was forced to ring and ring before a tousled old concierge presented himself.
'Avez‑vous les jeunes filles de Madame Beste‑Chetwynde? Paul asked, acutely conscious of the absurdity of the question.
'Sure, step right along, Mister, said the concierge; 'she wired us you was coming.
Mrs Grimes and her two friends were not yet dressed, but they received Paul with enthusiasm in dressing‑gowns which might have satisfied the taste for colour of the elder Miss Fagan. They explained the difficulty of the passports, which, Paul thought, was clearly due to some misapprehension by the authorities of their jobs in Rio. They didn't know any French, and of course they had explained things wrong.