Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/109

100 "I go by the Rue des Murailles," said Dumont, "but perhaps you?"

"Not at all," replied Buton. "That is my way also."

A little farther on Dumont stopped at the corner of a narrow by-way.

"This leads through to the Place de Chaumont, where my fox has gone to earth," he said. "Shall we get on with my affair first as it lies nearest?"

"Certainly," assented his companion. "But it is to the Place de Chaumont that my errand also takes us."

"The house opposite the lead fountain"

"The same."

"I mean that that is where the Marquis de Salais hides."

"Quite so," agreed Buton, with his mind full of his own affair. "As we are so near we may as well take my business first and warn him."

"Warn? Damnation! He is the man whom we have come to deliver up!"

For a moment the two adventurers stared at one another in a common emotion of dismay.

"Well," exclaimed Buton, "here's a pretty kettle of fish!"

"It's plain that we can't both succeed," assented Dumont.

"And our plan for mutual support would seem to present difficulties."

"I confess I don't see what we are to do. If de Salais is capable of the exalted behaviour with which you credit him"

"But if, on the other hand, he is really the depraved voluptuary that you have reason to"

"What's all the row about?" growled a rough voice from behind. "Can't you go somewhere else than on a man's own doorstep to quarrel over him?"