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By Root 1622 0

until eleven, to the accompaniment of no other sound in the deserted house than that of Hippolyte’s polishing stick in a distant first-floor room. Then he received two telegrams in quick succession, one informing him that Jean-Bart had been invaded by the Montsou mob, and the second telling him about the severed cables, the emptied furnaces and all the rest of the damage. He did not understand. What were the strikers doing attacking Deneulin instead of one of the Company’s mines? In any case they could wreck Vandame all they liked, it simply helped him in his plan to take it over. So at midday he had lunch, alone in the vast dining-room and served in silence by Hippolyte, oblivious even to the shuffle of his slippers. The solitude only added to the gloominess of his thoughts, and his blood ran cold when a deputy, having run all the way, was shown in and told him about the mob’s march on Mirou. Almost immediately, as he was finishing his coffee, a telegram informed him that Madeleine and Crèvecœur were now threatened in their turn. He was thoroughly unsure how to proceed. He was expecting the post at two o’clock. Should he ask for troops at once? Or was it better to do nothing and wait until he had received the Board’s instructions? He went back to his study, intending to read through a note to the Prefect he had asked Négrel to draft the day before. But he could not put his hand on it and thought that perhaps the young man had left it in his bedroom, where he often did his writing at night. Still undecided and wholly preoccupied by the thought of this note, he hurried upstairs to look for it.

On entering the bedroom, M. Hennebeau was taken aback: the room had not been attended to, presumably because Hippolyte had either forgotten or been too lazy to do so. The room seemed warm and clammy, stuffy from having been shut up all night, especially as the door of the stove had been left open; and his nostrils were assailed by a strong, suffocating smell of perfume that he thought must be coming from the wash-basin, which had not been emptied. The room was extremely untidy: clothes lay scattered about, wet towels had been tossed over the backs of chairs, the bed was unmade, and one sheet had been pulled half off on to the floor. But at first he barely took all this in, as he made for the table covered in papers and searched for the missing note. He went through them twice, examining each one, but it was plainly not there. What the devil had that scatterbrain Paul done with it?

As M. Hennebeau returned to the middle of the room, casting an eye over each piece of furniture, his attention was caught by a speck of brightness in the middle of the unmade bed, something glowing like a spark. Without thinking he went over, and his hand reached out. There, between two creases in the sheet, was a small gold scent-bottle. In an instant he had recognized it as one of Mme Hennebeau’s, the phial of ether which she always carried with her. But he could not explain how this object came to be here: what was it doing in Paul’s bed? Suddenly he turned deathly pale. His wife had slept here.

‘Excuse me,’ came Hippolyte’s low voice through the doorway, ‘I saw Monsieur come up and…’

The servant had come in and was filled with consternation at the state of the room.

‘Heavens! Of course! The room’s not been cleaned. It’s that Rose going out and leaving me to do everything!’

M. Hennebeau had hidden the bottle in his hand, and he was clutching it so tightly that he might have broken it.

‘What do you want?’

‘Monsieur, there’s another man downstairs…He’s come from Crèvecœur, with a letter.’

‘Very well, you may go. Kindly tell him to wait.’

His wife had slept here! Once he had bolted the door, he unclenched his fist and looked at the bottle, which had left a red mark on his skin. Suddenly he understood, he saw it all, this abominable thing that had been going on under his roof for months past. He recalled his former suspicion, the sound of clothes brushing past the door, of bare feet padding through the silent house in the middle of the night. It had