Here luck favoured him, for old Maître Rousset, the proprietor of the café, declared that his daughter had just gone down to the post-office, and would be back inside five minutes. He was delighted to welcome Monsieur Benson, the great Englishman, to his house; and he began to ask him a thousand questions about his art and achievement. Like many others, he had devised a flying machine twenty years ago, and he called for a glass of vermouth while he unfolded its wings, so to speak, and drew, with the stem of a brier pipe, a plan upon the table before him. When Susette came in, it needed all Benny’s ingenuity to get a word with her; but he managed it at last by sending her father upon an errand to the telephone, and promising him that he should see the machine if he came up to the chalet later on.
Susette was a brunette, with the figure of a woman and the face of a child. Her skin was very white, her cheeks inordinately red, when she returned from her errand down the village street. It was plain that she had been running in her eagerness to return. Someone had told her that the hero of the day was at the café, and knowing him to be the friend of her lover, Philip, she ran all the way from the post-office that she might not miss him. A few kindly words upon Benny’s part put her quite at her ease. Oh, yes, she knew that Monsieur Philip had gone into Italy; he would be back in three or four days at the most, for that was his promise.
"He has gone to Locarno, Monsieur. I am quite sure of it. He went by the first train this morning, and should reach his destination to-night. I have just posted a letter to him, which he will receive to-morrow. It is lonely to be so far away from us all. I do not think he has any friends in Italy."
"Then you do not know why he has gone there, Susette?"
"Of course, I know, Monsieur; it is to arrest the Englishman who killed his brother on the Zaat!"
"Do you think he will be able to find the fellow?"
Susette peeped through the door to be sure that no one heard her, and then drew a little nearer.
"I am glad that you came, Monsieur. You are a brave gentleman, and will tell me truly. There was a servant here, a Monsieur Paul Lacroix. He gave my Philip an address upon a piece of paper—one he got from the chalet where the English lady was staying. I have never liked Paul Lacroix; I do not think he means well to Philip. That is what makes me so anxious. I think he has been serving his own purpose, and that he feared to do the work himself. So he has sent my Philip. You will tell me truly, Monsieur, if that was right or just?"