"It was some minutes later, and already we had started to walk slowly back in the direction of the Rue Bar-le-Duc.
"'Yes--that's it--what's become of Ombos ... and the bronze statue?'
"Margot looked up at me, and a strange melancholy transformed her face.... She was at a loss for words.... 'Poor Ombos--oh, poor, cranky Ombos,' she muttered. 'One morning I found him dead in his room, with all his wonderful, brown, powdery-looking books. He was leaning on a table over an old volume that he was fond of.... And then the doctors came. He had died, they afterwards said, of failure of the heart's action.'
"'Then everything was very uncomfortable. But I saved a good sum of money, and I sent most of the valuable things to Paris to be sold--no living soul coming forward to make any claims. Ombos left everything to me ... bonds, securities, and all. Come this way--I have a little room up the side-street.
"'Yes; but why on earth do you stay in this dead city,' I broke in.
"'Sssh!... Don't interrupt unless I ask you questions.
"'I'll tell you all about everything. It's extraordinarily difficult....'
"'You see,' she picked her words carefully, 'Ombos was so--queer about that horrible Albertus Magnus of his. He had made me promise never to part with it and it seemed to me--stupidly perhaps--that I owed him that--to see that his only wish was carried out to the letter. Otherwise I should never dare to have stayed here. You couldn't expect me to move about with a gigantic bronze figure without making ample preparations.'
"'This is where I live,' she said in a low voice.
"Margot had halted in front of an alley leading over rough cobbles, into a small square of what appeared to be old oak-fronted houses. A narrow passage-way ran down by one side of the end house.
"'Won't you come inside, and--see Albertus? This way,' she said. 'It's rather dark, I'm afraid.'
"In pitch-black darkness, guided by Margot's hand, I stumbled through a doorway into a spacious hall--a mysterious, fusty-smelling cavern of a place--along a passage, and then up a flight of worn stone stairs. It was one of those old houses where one could feel the silence and hear the shadows. The steps came out upon a bare landing with oak-lined walls, lit only by a solitary flickering candle, and Margot, halting before a locked door, opened it and motioned me to enter.