inspector grinned, and whispered scornfully, “Oh, them common folks; they do sleep like that, your Grace.”
“Didn’t you hear any noise at the front door?” said M. Formery.
“No, we heard no noise at the door,” said the concierge.
“Then you heard no noise at all the whole night?” said M. Formery.
“Oh, yes, sir, we heard noise enough after we’d been gagged,” said the concierge.
“Now, this is important,” said M. Formery. “What kind of a noise was it?”
“Well, it was a bumping kind of noise,” said the concierge. “And there was a noise of footsteps, walking about the room.”
“What room? Where did these noises come from?” said M. Formery.
“From the room over our heads—the big drawing-room,” said the concierge.
“Didn’t you hear any noise of a struggle, as if somebody was being dragged about—no screaming or crying?” said M. Formery.
The concierge and his wife looked at one another with inquiring eyes.
“No, I didn’t,” said the concierge.
“Neither did I,” said his wife.
M. Formery paused. Then he said, “How long have you been in the service of M. Gournay-Martin?”
“A little more than a year,” said the concierge.
M. Formery looked at the paper in his hand, frowned, and said severely, “I see you’ve been convicted twice, my man.”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“My husband’s an honest man, sir—perfectly honest,” broke in his wife. “You’ve only to ask M. Gournay-Martin; he’ll—”
“Be so good as to keep quiet, my good woman,” said M. Formery; and, turning to her husband, he went on: “At your first conviction you were sentenced to a day’s imprisonment with costs; at your second conviction you got three days’ imprisonment.”
“I’m not going to deny it, sir,” said the concierge; “but it was an honourable imprisonment.”
“Honourable?” said M. Formery.
“The first time, I was a gentleman’s servant, and I got a day’s imprisonment for crying, ‘Hurrah for the General Strike!’—on the first of May.”
“You were a valet? In whose service?” said M. Formery.
“In the service of M. Genlis, the Socialist leader.”
“And your second conviction?” said M. Formery.
“It was for having cried in the porch of Ste. Clotilde, ‘Down with the cows!’—meaning the police, sir,” said the concierge.
“And were you in the service of M. Genlis then?” said M. Formery.
“No, sir; I was in the service of M. Bussy-Rabutin, the Royalist deputy.”
“You don’t seem to have very well-defined political convictions,” said M. Formery.
“Oh, yes, sir, I have,” the concierge protested. “I’m always devoted to my masters; and I have the same opinions that they have—always.”
“Very good; you can go,” said M. Formery.
The concierge and his wife left the room, looking as if they did not quite know whether to feel relieved or not.
“Those two fools are telling the exact truth, unless I’m very much mistaken,” said M. Formery.
“They look honest enough people,” said the Duke.
“Well, now to examine the rest of the house,” said M. Formery.
“I’ll come with you, if I may,” said the Duke.
“By all means, by all means,” said M. Formery.
“I find it all so interesting,” said the Duke.
CHAPTER X
GUERCHARD ASSISTS
Leaving a policeman on guard at the door of the drawing-room M. Formery, the Duke, and the inspector set out on their tour of inspection. It was a long business, for M. Formery examined every room with the most scrupulous care—with more care, indeed, than he had displayed in his examination of the drawing-rooms. In particular he lingered long in the bedroom of Victoire, discussing the possibilities of her having been murdered and carried away by the burglars along with their booty. He seemed, if anything, disappointed at finding no blood-stains, but to find real consolation in the thought that she might have been strangled. He found the inspector in entire agreement with every theory he enunciated, and he grew more and more disposed to regard him as a zealous and trustworthy officer. Also he was not at all displeased at enjoying this opportunity of impressing the Duke with his powers of analysis and synthesis. He was unaware that, as a rule, the Duke’s eyes did not usually twinkle as they twinkled during this solemn and deliberate progress through the house of M. Gournay-Martin. M. Formery had so exactly the air of a sleuthhound; and he was even noisier.
Having made this thorough examination of the house, M. Formery went out into the garden and set about examining that. There were footprints on the turf about the foot of the ladder, for the grass was close-clipped, and the rain had penetrated and softened the soil; but there were hardly as many footprints as might have been expected, seeing that the burglars must have made many journeys in the course of robbing the drawing-rooms of so many objects of art, some of them of considerable weight. The footprints led to a path of hard gravel; and M. Formery led the way down it, out of the door in the wall at the bottom of the garden, and into the space round the house which was being built.
As M. Formery had divined, there was a heap, or, to be exact, there were several heaps of plaster about the bottom of the scaffolding. Unfortunately, there were also hundreds of footprints. M. Formery looked at them with longing eyes; but he did not suggest that the inspector should hunt about for a set of footprints of the size of the one he had so carefully measured on the drawing-room carpet.
While they were examining the ground round the half-built house a man came briskly down the stairs from the second floor of the house of M. Gournay-Martin. He was an ordinary-looking man, almost insignificant, of between forty and fifty, and of rather more than middle height. He had an ordinary, rather shapeless mouth, an ordinary nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary forehead, rather low, and ordinary ears. He was wearing an ordinary top-hat, by no means new. His clothes were the ordinary clothes of a fairly well-to-do citizen; and his boots had been chosen less to set off any slenderness his feet might possess than for their comfortable roominess. Only his eyes relieved his face from insignificance. They were extraordinarily alert eyes, producing in those on whom they rested the somewhat uncomfortable impression that the depths of their souls were being penetrated. He was the famous Chief-Inspector Guerchard, head of the Detective Department of the Prefecture of Police, and sworn foe of Arsène Lupin.
The policeman at the door of the drawing-room saluted him briskly.
