"Let us hurry!" said Vagualame: "Let us seek shelter."
"Where?"
"You will see--with friends."
What did it matter to Bobinette where they were going while strange doubts and horrid fears filled her mind?
"Who released you?"
They were pa.s.sing beneath a street lamp. Vagualame noted that Bobinette was regarding him with defiant eyes. Was this really Vagualame? Was he an impostor?
Vagualame read her thoughts.
"Bobinette, you are nothing but a fool!" announced the old accordion player: "The man arrested at your place was a detective, who had got himself up like me to take you in!... You let him trick you! You are an imbecile!"
Bobinette stopped.
"But then ... if a detective made himself up to resemble you, it means they know you are guilty! It means they are after you! Why, it"s a mad thing you are doing, coming to meet me in that rig out! Why have you not disguised yourself?"
Vagualame smiled.
"Possibly I have reason for it, a plan you know nothing about, Bobinette!... But, let us return to the false Vagualame. How was it you did not detect the fraud, if only by the voice?... How is it you have not guessed the truth since?... When you received my telegram at Rouen it should have been as clear as daylight to you!... Eh!"
Bobinette kept silence.
"Well, we will not dwell on the past," declared Vagualame, with an air of magnanimity: "Fortunately your extraordinary simplicity has not had any particular consequences--save the stupid way you let them get hold of the gun piece, and allowed the false Corporal Vinson to escape!"...
In a menacing tone he said: "We will return to that question later."
"But," faltered Bobinette: "How could I act otherwise?"
Vagualame threw her such a look, a look so charged with fierce contempt that she could no longer doubt that she was face to face with her master. This master would not allow argument, discussion: well she knew that!
She screwed up her courage to ask:
"How did you learn my address?"
"That is my business!" he declared: "What I want to know I get to know--you must have seen that by this time!"
"How is it, then, you called at _The Crying Calf_ to-day?... Geoffrey did not know you: he alone knew I was coming to see him!... You followed me?"
"Suppose I did follow you?"... Vagualame"s tone changed: it became imperious.
"Have you quite finished asking me silly questions?... I consider it is my turn to put a question or two to you--What are you doing?"
Bobinette bent her head.
"You have a right to know," she murmured: "When you sent me that letter, after I took refuge in La Chapelle, telling me to go to the house of a Madame Olga Dimitroff and present myself for the post of companion, I went. She engaged me. I am still with her."
"To take refuge in an hotel was an idiotic thing to do, Bobinette....
The police could easily have nabbed you there if they had had a mind to. That is why I sent you to one of my old friends--to a person to whom I could recommend you!... Well, Bobinette, you will have to leave that house!"
The young woman bent her head, mastered, ready to accept any orders of Vagualame"s before they were issued. All she asked, in a timid voice, was: "Where am I to go then?"
"Far from here."
"Why?"
Vagualame"s smile was evil. His reply was like a series of sword thrusts.
"Because Juve has good eyes; because Fandor also begins to see clear.... The net begins to tighten.... I shall find means to slip through it!... I am not of those who are caught like a mouse in a trap.... But, as for you--you with your simplicity--it is high time to put you out of reach of the police!... I am going to give you some money. Five days hence, disguised as a gipsy, you are to be on the road from Sceaux to Versailles, at eleven o"clock at night, by the first milestone on the left side after the aeroplane garage.... You have followed me?"
Bobinette was trembling.
"Disguised as a gipsy, Vagualame? Why?"
"That is no concern of yours!... You have only to do as I tell you. I give orders, but not explanations!"
Vagualame felt in his pockets. He held out a note-book.
"You will find two fifty-franc notes in this. It is more than you need for a suitable disguise. I will give you more money when you start off, because I am going to send you to a foreign country."
Whilst talking, Vagualame and Bobinette had gone a long way from _The Crying Calf_. By a labyrinth of little streets, all darkness and mystery, Vagualame had led his companion to a kind of blind alley: a tall house blocked the end of it. A large shop on the ground floor occupied half the front of it. Although the iron shutters had been drawn down, light from the interior penetrated through apertures to the street--thin rays of light.
Vagualame laid a brutal hand on Bobinette.
"Attend to what I say: it is no joking matter. You are coming in with me. I am going to introduce you to my many friends here, whom I have recently got to know: they may say things that will astonish you, but do not show surprise.... I bring you here that you may know where to find me during the five days you remain in Paris.... You have only to write a letter and bring it to the woman who keeps this library.
Address to Vagualame: it will reach me."
"Yes," replied Bobinette.
Vagualame knocked three separate times, then twice quickly, on the iron shutters. A key turned in the lock: the door opened. Vagualame thrust Bobinette across the threshold. Out of the obscurity of the streets whipped by an icy wind and torrents of rain, Bobinette found herself in a brilliantly lighted book-shop.
She stood dazzled.
A young woman came forward.
"Good evening, Sophie," said Vagualame: "Anything new?"
"Nothing new, Vagualame!"
Bobinette looked about her. She saw piles of books and collections of magazines and papers. The shop was crowded with them.
"Sophie, I bring a new friend--a sure friend--who may have to bring you a letter for me one of these days," said Vagualame.
The proprietress looked curiously at Bobinette. All she said was:
"Have our brothers been warned, Vagualame?"
"They have not been told yet; but I shall present my friend to them at the first opportunity."