' He was looking rueful enough now, and
was seated on the side of a tombstone, on which he had laid a pistol,
while he was ramming home the charge of another.
"The boy got cautiously by, on tiptoe, with his eyes all the time on the
Count Chateau Blassernare, or the man he mistook for him--his dress was
not what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not be
mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern;
but though he did not smile, it was the same face he knew so well.
Nothing would make him swerve from that. If that were he, it was the
last time he was seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing could
be heard of him in the neighborhood of Rouen. There has been no evidence
of his death; and there is no sign that he is living."
"That certainly is a most singular case," I replied, and was about to
ask a question or two, when Tom Whistlewick who, without my observing
it, had been taking a ramble, returned, a great deal more awake, and a
great deal less tipsy.
"I say, Carmaignac, it is getting late, and I must go; I really must,
for the reason I told you--and, Beckett, we must soon meet again."
"I regret very much, Monsieur, my not being able at present to relate to
you the other case, that of another tenant of the very same room--a case
more mysterious and sinister than the last--and which occurred in the
autumn of the same year.
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