Through the Wall | Page 3

double swinging doors, with their coverings of leather and red velvet, and entered the sanctuary. And immediately he saw the girl.
She was in the shadows near a statue of the Virgin before which candles were burning. On the table were rosaries and talismans and candles of different lengths that it was evidently the girl's business to sell. In front of the Virgin's shrine was a prie dieu at which a woman was kneeling, but she presently rose and went out, and the girl sat there alone. She was looking down at a piece of embroidery, and Coquenil noticed her shapely white hands and the mass of red golden hair coiled above her neck. When she lifted her eyes he saw that they were dark and beautiful, though tinged with sadness. He was surprised to find this lovely young woman selling candles here in Notre-Dame Church.
And suddenly he was more surprised, for as the girl glanced up she met his gaze fixed on her, and immediately there came into her face a look so strange, so glad, and yet so frightened that Coquenil went to her quickly with reassuring smile. He was sure he had never seen her before, yet he realized that somehow she was equally sure that she knew him.
What followed was seen by only one person, that is, the sacristan's wife, a big, hard-faced woman with a faint mustache and a wart on her chin, who sat by the great column near the door dispensing holy water out of a cracked saucer and whining for pennies. Nothing escaped the hawklike eyes of Mother Bonneton, and now, with growing curiosity, she watched the scene between Coquenil and the candle seller. What interest could a great detective have in this girl, Alice, whom she and her husband had taken in as a half-charity boarder? Such airs as she gave herself! What was she saying now? Why should he look at her like that? The baggage!
"Holy saints, how she talks!" grumbled the sacristan's wife. "And see the eyes she makes! And how he listens! The man must be crazy to waste his time on her! Now he asks a question and she talks again with that queer, far-away look. He frowns and clinches his hands, and--upon my soul he seems afraid of her! He says something and starts to come away. Ah, now he turns and stares at her as if he had seen a ghost! _Mon Dieu, quelle folie!_"
This whole incident occupied scarcely five minutes, yet it wrought an extraordinary change in Coquenil. All his buoyancy was gone, and he looked worn, almost haggard, as he walked to the church door with hard-shut teeth and face set in an ominous frown.
"There's some devil's work in this," he muttered, and as his eyes caught the fires of the lurid sky he thought of Papa Tignol's words.
"What is it?" asked the sacristan, approaching timidly.
The detective faced him sharply. "Who is the girl in there? Where did she come from? How did she get here? Why does she--" He stopped abruptly, and, pressing the fingers of his two hands against his forehead, he stroked the brows over his closed eyes as if he were combing away error. "No, no!" he changed, "don't tell me yet. I must be alone; I must think. Come to me at nine to-night."
"I--I'll try to come," said Bonneton, with visions of an objecting wife.
"You must come," insisted the detective. "Remember, nine o'clock," and he started to go.
"Yes, yes, quite so," murmured the sacristan, following him. "But, M. Paul--er--which day do you sail?"
Coquenil turned and snapped out angrily: "I may not sail at all."
"But the--the position in Rio Janeiro?"
"A thousand thunders! Don't talk to me!" cried the other, and there was such black rage in his look that Bonneton cowered away, clasping and unclasping his hands and murmuring meekly: "Ah, yes, exactly."
* * * * *
So much for the humble influence that turned Paul Coquenil toward an unbelievable decision and led him ultimately into the most desperate struggle of his long and exciting career. A day of sinister portent this must have been, for scarcely had Coquenil left Notre-Dame when another scene was enacted there that should have been happy, but that, alas! showed only a rough and devious way stretching before two lovers. And again it was the girl who made trouble, this seller of candles, with her fine hands and her hair and her wistful dark eyes. A strange and pathetic figure she was, sitting there alone in the somber church. Quite alone now, for it was closing time, Mother Bonneton had shuffled off rheumatically after a cutting word--she knew better than to ask what had happened--and the old sacristan, lantern in hand and Caesar before him, was making his round of the galleries, securing doors and