Part 8

"A Red Cap--a corporal in the Military Police--loomed into view, and with an imprecation the rough backed away from the girl, turned, and in a moment was lost in the gloom. I brought my eyes back to the girl who had confronted me in the red light of sunset, and I stood gazing at her dumbly, fascinated, but with never a word to say. She was burning with anger and shame, trembling like an aspen, too.

"It was Margot!

"The girl glanced up at me, a look that set my heart throbbing. It was my first real sight of her since I had seen her that afternoon with Ombos. I had thought her pretty then, but there is a distinct gap between a pretty woman and a lovely woman, and she was as beautiful as a Greek marble. Indeed, but for the carmine of her lips, and long dark eyelashes, she might have been chiselled out of pellucid stone, for her skin was dead white. She was--or had been--beautifully and expensively dressed, and there was breeding and refinement in every line of her face.

"'Don't you know me?' I said.

"The girl looked at me intently.

"'I know you, of course,' she said.

"I won't waste time in trying to tell you what my thoughts and sensations were. Rather I will tell you instead, what I did.

"It was some minutes later, and already we had started to walk slowly back in the direction of the Rue Bar-le-Duc.

"'And now you want to know--' she said.

"'Yes--that's it--what's become of Ombos ... and the bronze statue?'

"Margot looked up at me, and a strange melancholy transformed her face.... She was at a loss for words.... 'Poor Ombos--oh, poor, cranky Ombos,' she muttered. 'One morning I found him dead in his room, with all his wonderful, brown, powdery-looking books. He was leaning on a table over an old volume that he was fond of.... And then the doctors came. He had died, they afterwards said, of failure of the heart's action.'

"'Dead,' I murmured mechanically....

"'Then everything was very uncomfortable. But I saved a good sum of money, and I sent most of the valuable things to Paris to be sold--no living soul coming forward to make any claims. Ombos left everything to me ... bonds, securities, and all. Come this way--I have a little room up the side-street.

"'He left me well provided for. He----'

"'Yes; but why on earth do you stay in this dead city,' I broke in.

"'Sssh!... Don't interrupt unless I ask you questions.

"'I'll tell you all about everything. It's extraordinarily difficult....'

"I waited.

"'You see,' she picked her words carefully, 'Ombos was so--queer about that horrible Albertus Magnus of his. He had made me promise never to part with it and it seemed to me--stupidly perhaps--that I owed him that--to see that his only wish was carried out to the letter. Otherwise I should never dare to have stayed here. You couldn't expect me to move about with a gigantic bronze figure without making ample preparations.'

"'Ah!'...

"'This is where I live,' she said in a low voice.

"Margot had halted in front of an alley leading over rough cobbles, into a small square of what appeared to be old oak-fronted houses. A narrow passage-way ran down by one side of the end house.

"'Won't you come inside, and--see Albertus? This way,' she said. 'It's rather dark, I'm afraid.'

"In pitch-black darkness, guided by Margot's hand, I stumbled through a doorway into a spacious hall--a mysterious, fusty-smelling cavern of a place--along a passage, and then up a flight of worn stone stairs. It was one of those old houses where one could feel the silence and hear the shadows. The steps came out upon a bare landing with oak-lined walls, lit only by a solitary flickering candle, and Margot, halting before a locked door, opened it and motioned me to enter.

"The room was in darkness, and I knew not what fear, akin to that little grey shadow of a fear, was to be found in the darkness there. At first I hesitated. Then Margot came with the candle, and as it guttered, the flame threw distorted shadows; at one moment lighting up a dark spot with a sudden flash, and then sending queer, erratic reflections chasing across the oak panelling. Then a flicker displayed the unmade bed on which Margot had lain.... She coloured deeply.

"'You have stored the bronze statue in some other part of the house,' I said at a venture.

"She looked at me, as I thought, a little uneasily.

"'You aren't afraid of that old statue?' she exclaimed. 'We might at least light up the candles,' she added, as I made no reply; and she turned and put a burning taper to the candelabra.