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Page 15
Of all the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant
odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of
death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking
in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that
makes my blood run cold whenever I think of her.
Then suddenly her manner, arrogant, insolent, cruel, changed. She became
polite. She was obsequious. Of the two, the first manner became her
vastly better. She looked at me with a curious air, almost with
reverence, as it seemed to me. She said, in a purring voice:
"Ach, so! I did not understand. The gentleman must excuse me."
And she purred again:
"So!"
It was then I noticed that her eyes were fastened upon my chest. I
followed their direction.
They rested on the silver badge I had stuck in my braces.
I understood and held my peace. Silence was my only trump until I knew
how the land lay. If I left this woman alone, she would tell me all I
wanted to know.
In fact, she began to speak again.
"I expected _you_," she said, "but not... _this_. Who is it this time? A
Frenchman, eh?"
I shook my head.
"An Englishman," I said curtly.
Her eyes opened in wonder.
"Ach, nein!" she cried--and you would have said her voice vibrated with
pleasure--"An Englishman! Ei, ei!"
If ever a human being licked its chops, that woman did.
She wagged her head and repeated to herself:
"Ei, ei !" adding, as if to explain her surprise, "he is the first we
have had.
"You brought him here, eh! But why up here? Or did der Stelze send him?"
She fired this string of questions at me without pausing for a reply.
She continued:
"I was out, but Karl told me. There was another came, too: Franz sent
him."
"This is he," I said. "I caught him prying in my room and he died."
"Ach!" she ejaculated ... and in her voice was all the world of
admiration that a German woman feels for brute man.... "The Herr
Englander came into your room and he died. So, so! But one must speak to
Franz. The man drinks too much. He is always drunk. He makes mistakes.
It will not do. I will...."
"I wish you to do nothing against Franz," I said. "This Englishman spoke
German well: Karl will tell you."
"As the gentleman wishes," was the woman's reply in a voice so silky and
so servile that I felt my gorge rise.
"She looks like a slug!" I said to myself, as she stood there, fat and
sleek and horrible.
"Here are his passport and other papers," I said, bending down and
taking them from the dead man's pocket. "He was an English officer, you
see?" And I unfolded the little black book stamped with the Royal Arms.
She leant forward and I was all but stifled with the stale odour of the
patchouli with which her faded body was drenched.
Then, making a sheaf of passport and permit, I held them in the flame of
the candle.
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