The Man in Grey | Page 3

struggling with their luggage. One or two of them were going to spend the night at the "Adam et ��ve": they had already filed past him into the narrow passage beyond, where they were now deep in an altercation with Gilles Blaise, the proprietor, on the subject of the price and the situation of their rooms; others had homes or friends in the city, and with their broken valises and bundles in their hands could be seen making their way up the narrow main street, still gesticulating excitedly.
"It's a shocking business, friend Gontran," quoth Gilles Blaise as soon as he had settled with the last of his customers. His gruff voice held a distinct note of sarcasm, for he was a powerful fellow and feared neither footpads nor midnight robbers, nor any other species of those satan�� Chouans. "I wonder you did not make a better fight for it. You had three or four male passengers aboard ----"
"What could I do?" retorted Gontran irritably. "I had my horses to attend to, and did it, let me tell you, with the muzzle of a pistol pressing against my temple."
"You didn't see anything of those miscreants?"
"Nothing. That is ----"
"What?"
"Just when I was free once more to gather the reins in my hands and the order 'Forward' was given by those impudent rascals, he who had spoken the order stood for a moment below one of my lanterns."
"And you saw him?"
"As plainly as I see you -- except his face, for that was hidden by the wide brim of his hat and by a shaggy beard. But there is one thing I should know him by, if the police ever succeeded in laying hands on the rogue."
"What is that?"
"He had only one leg, the other was a wooden one."
Gilles Blaise gave a loud guffaw. He had never heard of a highwayman with a wooden leg before. "The rascal cannot run far if the police ever do get after him," was his final comment on the situation.
Thereupon Gontran suddenly bethought himself of the passenger who had sat on the box-seat beside him until those abominable footpads had ordered the poor man to get out of their way.
"Have you seen anything of him, Hector?" he queried of the postilion.
"Well, now you mention him," replied the young man slowly, "I don't remember that I have."
"He was not among the lot that came out of the coach."
"He certainly was not."
"I thought when he did not get back to his seat beside me, he had lost his nerve and gone inside."
"So did I."
"Well, then?" concluded Gontran.
But the puzzle thus propounded was beyond Hector's powers of solution. He scratched the back of his head by way of trying to extract thence a key to the enigma.
"We must have left him behind," he suggested.
"He would have shouted after us if we had," commented Gontran. "Unless ----" he added with graphic significance.
Hector shook himself like a dog who has come out of the water. The terror of those footpads and of those pistols clicking in the dark, unpleasantly close to his head, was still upon him.
"You don't think ----" he murmured through chattering teeth.
Gontran shrugged his shoulders.
"It won't be the first time," he said sententiously, "that those miscreants have added murder to their other crimes."
"Lost one of your passengers, Gontran?" queried Gilles Blaise blandly.
"If those rogues have murdered him ----" quoth Gontran with an oath.
"Then you'd have to make a special declaration before the chief commissary of police, and that within an hour. Who was your passenger, Gontran?"
"I don't know. A quiet, well-mannered fellow. Good company he was, too, during the first part of the way."
"What was his name?"
"I can't tell. I picked him up at Argentan. The box-seat was empty. No one wanted it, for it was raining then. He paid me his fare and scrambled up beside me. That's all I know about him."
"What was he like? Young or old?"
"I didn't see him very well. It was already getting dark," rejoined Gontran impatiently. "I couldn't look him under the nose, could I?"
"But sacrebleu! Monsieur le Commissaire de Police will want to know something more than that. Did you at least see how he was dressed?"
"Yes," replied Gontran, "as far as I can recollect he was dressed in grey."
"Well, then, friend Gontran," concluded Gilles Blaise with a jovial laugh, "you can go at once to Monsieur le Commissaire de Police, and you can tell him that an industrious Chouan, who has a wooden leg and a shaggy beard but whose face you did not see, has to the best of your belief murdered an unknown passenger whose name, age and appearance you know nothing about, but who, as far as you can recollect, was dressed in grey ---- And we'll see," he added with a touch of grim humour, "what