It was not without emotion that the next day Saniel saw the afternoon slip away, and although he worked to employ his time, he interrupted himself at each instant to look at the clock.
Sometimes he found the time passing quickly, and then all at once it seemed to stand still.
This agitation exasperated him, for calmness had never been more necessary than at this moment. A danger was before him, and it was only in being master of himself that he could be saved. He must have the coolness of a surgeon during an operation, the glance of a general in a battle; and the coolness and the glance were not found among the nervous and agitated.
Could he escape from this danger?
This was the question that he asked himself unceasingly, although he knew the uselessness of it. What good was it to study the chances for or against him?
Either he had succeeded in rendering himself unrecognizable or he had not; but it was done, and now he could do nothing more. He did the best he could in choosing an hour when the dim evening light put the chances on his side; for the rest he must trust to Fortune.
All day he studied the sky, because for the success of his plan it must be neither too bright nor too dark: if it were too bright Madame Dammauville could see him clearly; if it were too dark the lamps would be lighted. He remembered that it was by lamplight she had seen him. Until evening the weather was uncertain, with a sky sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy; but at this hour the clouds were driven away by a wind from the north, and the weather became decidedly cold, with the pink and pale clearness of the end of March when it still freezes.
On examining himself he had the satisfaction to feel that he was calmer than in the morning, and that as the moment of attack approached, his agitation decreased; decision, firmness, and coolness came to him; he felt master of his will, and capable of obeying it.
At six o’clock precisely he rang at Balzajette’s door, and they started immediately for the Rue Sainte-Anne. Happy to have a complaisant listener, Balzajette did all the talking, so that Saniel had only to reply “yes” or “no” from time to time, and of course it was not of Madame Dammauville that he spoke, but other matters—of a first representation on the previous evening at the Opera Comique; of politics; of the next salon.
At exactly a quarter past six they reached the house in the Rue Sainte-Anne, where Saniel had not been since Caffies death. On passing the old concierge’s lodge he felt satisfied with himself; his heart did not beat too quickly, his ideas were firm and clear. Should danger arrive, he felt assured of mastery over himself, without excitement, as without brutality.
Balzajette rang the bell, and the door was opened by a maid, who was, evidently, placed in the vestibule to await their arrival. Balzajette entered first, and Saniel followed him, giving a hasty glance at the rooms through which they passed. They reached a door at which Balzajette knocked twice.
“Enter,” replied a feminine voice in a firm tone.
This was the decisive moment; the day was everything that could be wished, neither too light nor too dark. What would Madame Dammauville’s first glance mean?
“My confrere, Doctor Saniel,” Balzajette said on going toward Madame Dammauville, and taking her hand.
She was lying on the little bed of which Phillis had spoken, but not against the windows, rather in the middle of the room, placed there evidently after the experience of a sick person who knows that to be examined she must be easily seen.
Profiting by this arrangement, Saniel immediately passed between the bed and the windows in such a way that the daylight was behind him, and consequently his face was in shadow. This was done naturally, without affectation, and it seemed that he only took this side of the bed because Balzajette took the other.
Directed by Saniel, the examination commenced with a clearness and a precision that pleased Balzajette. He did not lose himself in idle words, the young ‘confrere’, any more than in useless details. He went straight to the end, only asking and seeking the indispensable; and as Madame Dammauville’s replies were as precise as his questions, while listening and putting in a word from time to time he said to himself that his dinner would not be delayed, which was the chief point of his preoccupation. Decidedly, he understood life, the young ‘confrere’; he might be called in consultation with his heavy appearance and careless toilet, there was no danger of rivalry.
However, when Madame Dammauville began to speak of being sensitive to cold, Balzajette found that Saniel let her lose herself in minute details.
“Have you always been sensitive to cold?”
“Yes; and with a deplorable disposition to take cold if the temperature is lowered one or two degrees.”
“Did you exercise in the open air?”
“Very little.”
“Were you ever advised to try shower-baths of cold water?”
“I should not have been able to bear it.”
“I must tell you,” Balzajette interrupted, “that before occupying this house that belongs to her, Madame Dammauville lived in a more modern apartment which was heated by a furnace, and where consequently it was easier to maintain an even temperature to which she was accustomed.”
“On coming to live in this house, where it is not possible to have a furnace,” Madame Dammauville went on, “I employed every means to shelter me from the cold, which I am sure is my great enemy. You can see that I have had weather-strips put at the doors, as well as at the windows.”
In spite of this invitation and the gesture which accompanied it, Saniel was careful not to turn his head toward the window; he kept his face in the shadow, contenting himself with looking at the door which was opposite to him.
“At the same time,” she continued, “I had hangings put on the walls, carpets on the floors, thick curtains at the windows and doors, and in spite of the large fire in my fireplace, often I am unable to get warm.”
“Do you also have a fire in this little stove?” Saniel asked, pointing to a small movable stove at the corner of the fireplace.
“Only at night, so that my servants need not get up every hour to replenish the fire in the chimney. The fire is made in the evening just before I go to sleep; the pipe is placed in the chimney, and it maintains sufficient heat until morning.”
“I think it will be expedient to suppress this mode of heating, which must be very inconvenient,” Saniel said; “and my ‘confrere’ and myself will consider the question whether it will not be possible to give you the heat you need with this chimney, without fatiguing your servants, and without waking you too often to take care of the fire. But let us continue.”
When he reached the end of his questions he rose to examine the patient on her bed, but without turning round, and in such a way as still to keep his back to the light.
As little by little the reflection of the setting sun faded, Balzajette proposed asking for a lamp: without replying too hastily, Saniel refused; it was useless, the daylight was sufficient.
They passed into the parlor, where they very quickly came to an amicable conclusion, for at everything that Saniel said Balzajette replied:
“I am happy to see that you partake of my opinion. That is it. Truly, that is so!”
And, besides, each had his reasons for hurrying—Saniel, for fear of the lamps; Balzajette, uneasiness for his dinner. The diagnosis and the treatment were rapidly settled; Saniel proposed, Balzajette approved. The question of the movable stove was decided in two words: for the night a grate would be placed in the chimney; a fire of coal covered with damp coal-dust would keep the fire until morning.
“Let us return,” Balzajette said, who took the initiative and decided on all material things.
Saniel, who kept his eyes on the windows, was calm; it was yet too light to need lamps, besides, during their tete-a-tete, no servant had crossed the salon to enter Madame Dammauville’s room.
But when Balzajette opened the door to return to the patient, a flood of light filled the parlor and enveloped them. A lamp with a shade was placed on the little table near the bed, and two other lighted lamps with globes were on the mantel, reflecting their light in the mirror. How had he not foreseen that there was another door to Madame Dammauville’s room besides the door from the parlor? But if he had foreseen it, it would not have lessened the danger of the situation.
He would have had time to prepare himself, that was all. But to prepare himself for what? Either to enter the room and brave this danger, or to fly. He entered.
“This is what we have decided,” Balzajette said, who never lost an occasion to put himself forward and to speak.
While he spoke, Madame Dammauville seemed not to listen to him. Her eyes were on Saniel, placed between her and the chimney with his back to the lamps, and she looked at him with a characteristic fixedness.
Balzajette, who listened to himself, observed nothing; but Saniel, who knew what there was behind this glance, could not but be struck with it. Happily for him, he had only to let Balzajette talk, for if he had spoken he would surely have betrayed himself by the quivering of his voice.
However, Balzajette seemed coming to the end of his explanations. Suddenly Saniel saw Madame Dammauville extend her hand toward the lamp on the table, and raise the shade by lowering it toward her in such a way as to form a reflector that threw the light on him. At the same time he received a bright ray full on his face.
Madame Dammauville uttered a small, stifled cry.
Balzajette stopped; then his astonished eyes went from Madame Dammauville to Saniel, and front Saniel to Madame Dammauville.
“Are you suffering?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
What, then, was the matter? But it was seldom that he asked for an explanation of a thing that astonished him, preferring to divine and to explain it himself.
“Ah! I understand it,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“The youth of my young ‘confrere’ astonishes you. It is his fault. Why the devil did he have his long hair and his light curled beard cut?”
If Madame Dammauville had not released the lampshade, she would have seen Saniel turned pale and his lips quiver.
“Mais voila!” continued Balzajette. “He made this sacrifice to his new functions; the student has disappeared before the professor.”
He might have continued along time. Neither Madame Dammauville nor Saniel listened to him; but, thinking of his dinner, he was not going to launch into a discourse that at any other moment he would not have failed to undertake. He rose to go.
As Saniel bowed, Madame Dammauville stopped him with a movement of her hand.
“Did you not know this unfortunate who was assassinated opposite?” she asked, pointing to the windows.
So serious as was an acknowledgment, Saniel could not answer in the negative.
“I was called in to prove his death,” he said.
And he took several steps toward the door, but she stopped him again.
“Had you business with him?” she asked.
“I saw him several times.”
Balzajette cut short this conversation, which was idle talk to him.
“Good evening, dear Madame. I will see you tomorrow, but not in the morning, for I go to the country at six o’clock, and shall not return until noon.”
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