You just take it, sir, and forget this business, and you'll thank me all
your life."
CHAPTER XV
GEORGES THE CHAUFFEUR
Upon descending to the courtyard, I took a seat on a bench beneath a
vine-covered trellis. To stop here for a time, smoking, would seem a
natural proceeding, and while I held such a post of recognizance nothing
overt could transpire in the environs without my taking note of the
fact. Enough had developed already, though, heaven was witness! I lit a
cigarette and prepared for a resume.
Like a sleuth noting salient points, I glanced round the rectangular
court. At my right, off the gallery, was Miss Falconer's room shrouded
in darkness; at the left, up another flight of stairs, my own uninviting
domain. The quarters of Van Blarcom and his uniformed friends opened
from the gallery above the street passage, facing the main portion of
the inn which sheltered the kitchen and _salle a manger_. Such was the
simple, homely stage-setting. What of the play?
Bleau, I now felt tolerably sure, was merely a mile-stone on the route
of Miss Falconer.
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