XII

A CASE TO INVESTIGATE

Godefroid walked from the cloister of Notre-Dame to the avenue de l’Observatoire in such a state of exaltation that he never noticed the length of the way.

When he reached the rue Notre-Dame des Champs at the point where it joins the rue de l’Ouest he was amazed to find (neither of these streets being paved at the time of which we write) great mud-holes in that fine open quarter.  Persons walked on planks laid down beside the houses and along the marshy gardens, or on narrow paths flanked on each side by stagnant water which sometimes turned them into rivulets.

By dint of searching he found the house he wanted, but he did not reach it without difficulty.  It was evidently an abandoned factory.  The building was narrow and the side of it was a long wall with many windows and no architectural decoration whatever.  None of these windows, which were square, were on the lower floor, where there was no opening but a very miserable entrance-door.

Godefroid supposed that the proprietor had turned the building into a number of small tenements to make it profitable, for a written placard above the door stated that there were “Several rooms to let.”  Godefroid rang, but no one came.  While he was waiting, a person who went by pointed out to him that the house had another entrance on the boulevard where he might get admittance.

Godefroid followed this advice and saw at the farther end of a little garden which extended along the boulevard a second door to the house.  The garden, rather ill-kept, sloped downward, for there was enough difference in level between the boulevard and the rue Notre-Dame des Champs to make it a sort of ditch.  Godefroid therefore walked along one of the paths, at the end of which he saw an old woman whose dilapidated garments were in keeping with the house.

“Was it you who rang at the other door?” she asked.

“Yes, madame.  Do you show the lodgings?”

On the woman’s replying that she did, Godefroid inquired if the other lodgers were quiet persons; his occupations, he said, were such that he needed silence and peace; he was a bachelor and would be glad to arrange with the portress to do his housekeeping.

On this suggestion the portress assumed a gracious manner.

“Monsieur has fallen on his feet in coming here, then,” she said; “except on the Chaumiere days the boulevard is as lonely as the Pontine marshes.”

“Ah! you know the Pontine marshes?” said Godefroid.

“No, monsieur, I don’t; but I’ve got an old gentleman upstairs whose daughter seems to get her living by being ill, and he says that; I only repeat it.  The poor old man will be glad to know that monsieur likes quiet, for a noisy neighbor, he thinks, would kill his daughter.  On the second floor we have two writers; they don’t come in till midnight, and are off before eight in the morning.  They say they are authors, but I don’t know where or when they write.”