XVI

Du Roy said: “It is I. It is useless to seek to escape.”

The light steps, the tread of bare feet, was heard to withdraw, and then in a few seconds to return.

George said: “If you won’t open, we will break in the door.”

He grasped the handle, and pushed slowly with his shoulder. As there was no longer any reply, he suddenly gave such a violent and vigorous shock that the old lock gave way. The screws were torn out of the wood, and he almost fell over Madeleine, who was standing in the anteroom, clad in a chemise and petticoat, her hair down, her legs bare, and a candle in her hand.

He exclaimed: “It is she, we have them,” and darted forward into the rooms. The commissary, having taken off his hat, followed him, and the startled woman came after, lighting the way. They crossed a drawing-room, the uncleaned table of which displayed the remnants of a repast⁠—empty champagne bottles, an open pot of fatted goose liver, the body of a fowl, and some half-eaten bits of bread. Two plates piled on the sideboard were piled with oyster shells.

The bedroom seemed disordered, as though by a struggle. A dress was thrown over a chair, a pair of trousers hung astride the arm of another. Four boots, two large and two small, lay on their sides at the foot of the bed. It was the room of a house let out in furnished lodgings, with commonplace furniture, filled with that hateful and sickening smell of all such places, the odor of all the people who had slept or lived there a day or six months. A plate of cakes, a bottle of chartreuse, and two liqueur glasses, still half full, encumbered the mantelshelf. The upper part of the bronze clock was hidden by a man’s hat.

The commissary turned round sharply, and looking Madeleine straight in the face, said: “You are Madame Claire Madeleine Du Roy, wife of Monsieur Prosper George Du Roy, journalist, here present?”