till he hit upon the whereabouts of that Grégoire, with whom Bournef and his companions had taken refuge? Should he inform the police? Should he return to the Rue Raynouard? He did not know. Yes, he was capable of acting, if the act to be performed consisted in flinging himself into the conflict with furious ardor. But to prepare the action, to divine the obstacles, to rend the darkness, and, as he said, to see the invisible and grasp the intangible, that was beyond his powers.
He turned suddenly to Ya-Bon, who was standing depressed by his silence:
"What's the matter with you, putting on that lugubrious air? Of course it's you that throw a gloom over me! You always look at the black side of things.. like a nigger!.. Be off."
Ya-Bon was going away discomfited, when some one tapped at the door and a voice said:
"Captain Belval, you're wanted on the telephone."
Patrice hurried out. Who on earth could be telephoning to him so early in the morning?
"Who is it?" he asked the nurse.
"I don't know, captain… It's a man's voice; he seemed to want you urgently. The bell had been ringing some time. I was downstairs, in the kitchen.."
Before Patrice's eyes there rose a vision of the telephone in the Rue Raynouard, in the big room at the Essarès' house. He could not help wondering if there was anything to connect the two incidents.
He went down one flight of stairs and along a passage. The telephone was through a small waiting-room, in a room that had been turned into a linen-closet. He closed the door behind him.
"Hullo! Captain Belval speaking. What is it?"
A voice, a man's voice which he did not know, replied in breathless, panting tones:
"Ah!.. Captain Belval!.. It's you!.. Look here.. but I'm almost afraid that it's too late… I don't know if I shall have time to finish… Did you get the key and the letter?."
"Who are you?" asked Patrice.
"Did you get the key and the letter?" the voice insisted.
"The key, yes," Patrice replied, "but not the letter."
"Not the letter? But this is terrible! Then you don't know."
A hoarse cry struck Patrice's ear and the next thing he caught was incoherent sounds at the other end of the wire, the noise of an altercation. Then the voice seemed to glue itself to the instrument and he distinctly heard it gasping:
"Too late!.. Patrice.. is that you?.. Listen, the amethyst pendant.. yes, I have it on me… The pendant… Ah, it's too late!.. I should so much have liked to.. Patrice… Coralie.."
Then again a loud cry, a heart-rending cry, and confused sounds growing more distant, in which he seemed to distinguish:
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