FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62  
63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>   >|  
Something in the stolid way he did so caused Flambeau's fierce black eyes to ramble over his companion afresh. "What's the matter with you?" Flambeau demanded. "Dubosc's all right in that way. You don't doubt him?" "My friend," said the small priest, laying down his knife and fork in a kind of cold despair, "I doubt everything. Everything, I mean, that has happened today. I doubt the whole story, though it has been acted before my face. I doubt every sight that my eyes have seen since morning. There is something in this business quite different from the ordinary police mystery where one man is more or less lying and the other man more or less telling the truth. Here both men.... Well! I've told you the only theory I can think of that could satisfy anybody. It doesn't satisfy me." "Nor me either," replied Flambeau frowning, while the other went on eating fish with an air of entire resignation. "If all you can suggest is that notion of a message conveyed by contraries, I call it uncommonly clever, but...well, what would you call it?" "I should call it thin," said the priest promptly. "I should call it uncommonly thin. But that's the queer thing about the whole business. The lie is like a schoolboy's. There are only three versions, Dubosc's and Hirsch's and that fancy of mine. Either that note was written by a French officer to ruin a French official; or it was written by the French official to help German officers; or it was written by the French official to mislead German officers. Very well. You'd expect a secret paper passing between such people, officials or officers, to look quite different from that. You'd expect, probably a cipher, certainly abbreviations; most certainly scientific and strictly professional terms. But this thing's elaborately simple, like a penny dreadful: 'In the purple grotto you will find the golden casket.' It looks as if... as if it were meant to be seen through at once." Almost before they could take it in a short figure in French uniform had walked up to their table like the wind, and sat down with a sort of thump. "I have extraordinary news," said the Duc de Valognes. "I have just come from this Colonel of ours. He is packing up to leave the country, and he asks us to make his excuses sur le terrain." "What?" cried Flambeau, with an incredulity quite frightful--"apologize?" "Yes," said the Duke gruffly; "then and there--before everybody--when the swords are drawn. And you
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62  
63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
French
 

Flambeau

 

officers

 

written

 
official
 

German

 
expect
 

business

 
uncommonly
 
satisfy

priest

 

Dubosc

 

incredulity

 

simple

 

frightful

 
cipher
 
purple
 

abbreviations

 

professional

 
strictly

dreadful

 

scientific

 

elaborately

 

apologize

 

mislead

 

swords

 

secret

 

people

 
grotto
 
officials

passing

 
gruffly
 

golden

 

Colonel

 

walked

 

packing

 

figure

 
uniform
 

Valognes

 
country

excuses

 

extraordinary

 

casket

 
terrain
 
Almost
 

conveyed

 

happened

 

despair

 

Everything

 

mystery