I shall insist that we wear masks in order to avoid recognition.
I shall also arrange to go to the rendezvous alone—any pretext will serve.
All you need do is to be there at the appointed hour, speak little and—shoot straight.”
“And who are you?”
“You do not know me?” Pierre asked in a tone of surprise.
“I know no one.”
“Dramatic critic on L’Avenir,” said Pierre, taking a card from his case and handing it to the other.
“Ah! This, then, is professional?”
“Yes.
I have never even seen Lamon… Of course there are other details to be arranged, and it will be safest for you to wear one of my suits. I will bring it myself tomorrow morning.”
Pierre was moving toward the door.
Phillips rose from his chair.
“But, monsieur!
The thousand francs.”
“I will bring you five hundred tomorrow morning; the remainder after the duel.”
For that afternoon and evening and the following day, Pierre found much work to do.
The arrangement of details proved to be not so simple as he had expected.
The seconds of Monsieur Lamon fell in readily with his scheme of masking; but Pierre’s own friends were not so easily persuaded.
They denounced it as childish and absurd, inasmuch as the projected duel was an open topic of discussion in every cafe in Paris; and they particularly objected to their principal’s determination to go to the rendezvous unattended.
The thing was unprecedented, monstrously irregular; it would amount, on their part, to an absolute breach of duty.
“Our honor, our very honor, will be compromised!
It is impossible!”
But Pierre, who had much more than honor at stake, prevailed against all entreaties and protests.
On Wednesday morning he spent a full hour in Phillips’s room, coaching him against every possible mischance.
Luckily Phillips was acquainted with the appearance of one of his seconds, and Pierre gave him a minute description of the other; and since Pierre himself had never seen Lamon, Phillips would of course not be expected to recognize him.
As to any minor oddities of gesture or voice they would be easily accounted for as the result of the strain under which the duelist might be supposed to labor.
Pierre finally rose from his chair with a gesture of approbation.
“Perfect!” he declared, surveying Phillips from head to foot.
“I wouldn’t know the difference myself.”
Opening a purse, he took from it five hundred-franc notes and laid them on the table.
“There is half.
And remember, this is the most important of all: after it is over, come at once to the Restaurant de la Tour d’Ivoire. There you will change your garments and become Monsieur Phillips again, and I will pay the remainder.
It will be difficult, for they will insist on accompanying you, but you must manage it somehow.”
Phillips picked up the banknotes, folded them and placed them in his pocket. Then, turning to Pierre,
“There is one thing we have not considered,” he said.
“What if I am wounded?
Then the fraud would be discovered.”
Pierre’s face paled.
“I had thought of that.
But we must take our chances.
And you—for God’s sake, shoot first, and shoot straight.”
“Monsieur Dumain,” said Phillips, “rest easy. When I aim at this Lamon, I shall hit him.”
But that night Pierre was unable to sleep.
Whenever he closed his eyes he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver which, in size, bore a strong resemblance to a cannon.
This was disquieting.
Pierre sat up in bed and reached for a cigarette.
“It’s absurd,” he said aloud.
“I’m as shaky as though I were going to do it myself.”
At half-past four he rose, dressed, and finding the cab he had ordered at the door, proceeded through the silent, dim streets toward the Pont de Suresnes.
The rear of the Restaurant de la Tour d’Ivoire, which Pierre had selected as his place of retreat during the duel, overlooked the Seine at a point about a hundred yards up the river from this bridge.