He stared at her. 'Are they moving the offices from Paris, then?'
She shook her head. 'I only know what I have told you, monsieur. All our guests must leave.'
He was silent for a minute. Then he said: 'What did you say was the name of the garage?'
'The Garage Citroën, monsieur. I will telephone and ask them, if you wish?'
He said: 'Please do.'
She turned away and went into the box; he waited at the desk, worried and anxious. He felt that the net of circumstances was closing in on him, driving him where he did not want to go. The car to St Malo was the knife that would cut through his difficulties and free him. Through the glass of the booth he saw her speaking volubly into ihe telephone; he waited on tenterhooks.
She came back presently. 'It is impossible,' she said. 'There is no car available for such a journey. I regret -Monsieur Duval, the proprietor of the garage, regrets also but monsieur will have to go by train.'
He said very quietly: 'Surely it would be possible to arrange something? There must be a car of some sort or another?'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'Monsieur could go to see Monsieur Duval perhaps, at the garage. If anybody in Dijon could produce a car for such a journey it would be he.'
She gave him directions for finding the garage; ten minutes later he was in the Frenchman's office. The garage owner was quite positive. 'A car, yes,' he declared. 'That is the least thing, monsieur, I could find the car. But petrol - not a litre that has not been taken by the army. Only by fraud can I get petrol for the car - you understand? And then, the roads. It is not possible to make one's way along the road to Paris, not possible at all, monsieur.'
'Finally,' he said, 'I could not find a driver for a journey such as that. The Germans are across the Seine, monsieur; they are across the Marne. Who knows where they will be the day after tomorrow?'
The old man was silent.
The Frenchman said: 'If monsieur wishes to get back to England he should go by train, and he should go very soon.'
Howard thanked him for the advice, and went out into the street. Dusk was falling; he moved along the pavement, deep in thought. He stopped by a café and went in, and ordered a Pernod with water. He took the drink and went and sat down at a table by the wall, and stayed there for some time, staring at the garish advertisements of cordials on the walls.
Things had grown serious. If he left now, at once, it might be possible to win through to St Malo and to England; if he delayed another thirty-six hours it might very well be that St Malo would be overwhelmed and smothered in the tide of the German rush, as Calais had been smothered, and Boulogne. It seemed incredible that they could still be coming on so fast. Surely, surely, they would be checked before they got to Paris? It could not possibly be true that Paris would fall?
He did not like this evacuation of the railway offices from Paris. That had an ugly sound.
He could go back now to the hotel. He could get both the children up and dress them, pay the bill at the hotel, and take them to the station. Ronnie would be all right. Sheila - well, after all, she had a coat. Perhaps he could get hold of a shawl to wrap her up in. True it was night-time and the trains would be irregular; they might have to sit about for hours on the platform in the night waiting for a train that never came. But he would be getting the children back to England, as he had promised Cavanagh.
But then, if Sheila should get worse? Suppose she took a chill and got pneumonia?
If that should happen, he would never forgive himself. The children were in his care; it was not caring for them if he went stampeding to the station in the middle of the night to start on a long, uncertain journey regardless of their weakness and their illness. That wasn't prudence. That was... fright.
He smiled a little at himself. That's what it was, just fright - something to be conquered. Looking after children, after all, meant caring for them in sickness. That's what it meant. It was quite clear. He'd taken the responsibility for them, and he must see it through, even though it now seemed likely to land him into difficulties that he had not quite anticipated when he first took on the job.
He got up and went back to the hotel. In the lobby the girl said to him: 'Monsieur has found a car?'
He shook his head. 'I shall stay here till the day after tomorrow. Then, if the little girl is well, we will go on by train.'
He paused. 'One thing, mademoiselle. I will only be able to take one little bag for the three of us, that I can carry myself. If I leave my fishing-rods, would you look after them for me for a time?'
'But certainly, monsieur. They will be quite safe.'
He went into the restaurant and found a seat for dinner. It was a great relief to him that he had found a means to place his rods in safety. Now that that little problem had been solved, he was amazed to find how greatly it had been distressing him; with that disposed of he could face the future with a calmer mind.
He went up to the bedroom shortly after dinner. The femme de chambre met him in the corridor, the yellow, dingy, corridor of bedrooms, lit only by a low-power lamp without a shade. 'I have made monsieur a bed on the floor,' she said in a low tone. 'You will see.' She turned away.
That was very kind of you,' he said. He paused, and looked curiously at her. In the dim light he could not see very clearly, but he had the impression that she was sobbing.
'Is anything the matter?' he asked gently.
She lifted the corner of her apron to her eyes. 'It is nothing,' she muttered. 'Nothing at all.'
He hesitated, irresolute. He could not leave her, could not just walk into his bedroom and shut the door, if she was in trouble. She had been too helpful with the children. 'Is it Madame?' he said. 'Has she complained about your work? If so, I will speak to her. I will tell her how much you have helped me.'
She shook her head and wiped her eyes.
'It is not that, monsieur,' she said. 'But - I am dismissed. I am to go tomorrow.'
He was amazed. 'But why?'
'Five years,' she said. 'Five years I have been with Madame - in all seasons of the year, monsieur - five years continuously! And now, to be dismissed at the day! It is intolerable, that.' She began to weep a little louder.
The old man said: 'But why has Madame done this?'
She said: 'Have you not heard? The hotel is closing tomorrow. It is to be an office for the railway.' She raised her tear-stained face. 'All of us are dismissed, monsieur, everyone. I do not know what will happen to me, and la petite Rose.'
He was dumbfounded, not knowing what to say to help the woman. Obviously, if the hotel was to be an office for the railway staff, there would be no need for any chamber-maids; the whole hotel staff would have to go. He hesitated, irresolute.
'You will be all right,' he said at last. 'It will be easy for so good a femme de chambre as you to get another job.'
She shook her head. 'It is not so. All the hotels are closing, and what family can now afford a servant? You are kind, monsieur, but it is not so. I do not know how we shall live.'
'You have some relations, or family, that you can go to, no doubt?'
'There is nobody, monsieur. Only my brother, father of little Rose, and he is in England.'