Page:Chipperfield--Unseen Hands.djvu/102

90 heart! I go to bed and at last I sleep, but I wake very late and I hear loud voices.

"I listen, for my door is open because of the heat. It is Monsieur Julian and Monsieur Gene and they are both so angry! I rise to close my door, but I hear one word that make me stand still like a statue. It is 'thief' and it is Monsieur Julian who says it. Then there is the sound of a blow; and me, I go out in the hall and look over the banisters. Monsieur Julian's door is also open, and there is the sound of scuffling and the messieurs breathing hoarsely and cursing.

"At last there came a jar and squeak of the bed-springs, as if one had thrown the other across the bed; and in a moment Monsieur Julian appear at the door of his room dragging Monsieur Gene by the collar.

"He throw him out into the hall and close the door; and me, I go back into my room without waiting to see Monsieur Gene pick himself up. But every time I look at his so sad face now I think he grieves him because his brother died without the reconciliation."

"You do not recall any more of the conversation than just the one word 'thief', do you, Marcelle?"

"No, Monsieur; and that was only the talk of bad little boys calling the names to each other that they did not mean. But this will not help you in your search nor put my omelette in the pan."

She turned with an air of finality to the table, and the detective went slowly upstairs. So Julian and Gene had quarreled on the last night of the former's life, and Gene had been afraid or unwilling to admit it to him that morning.