“Speak, come, speak!” said M. Lenormand.
“Oh,” he said, as though blinded with light, “now all is explained! …”
“Speak, speak!”
He walked across to the windows with a tottering step, then returned and, rushing up to the chief detective:
“Sir, sir … Rudolf’s murderer … I’ll tell you. … Well …”
He stopped short.
“Well?”
There was a moment’s pause. … Was the name of the odious criminal about to echo through the great silence of the office, between those walls which had heard so many accusations, so many confessions? M. Lenormand felt as if he were on the brink of the unfathomable abyss and as if a voice were mounting, mounting up to him. … A few seconds more and he would know. …
“No,” muttered Steinweg, “no, I can’t. …”
“What’s that you say?” cried the chief detective, furiously.
“I say that I can’t.”
“But you have no right to be silent. The law requires you to speak.”
“Tomorrow. … I will speak tomorrow … I must have time to reflect. … Tomorrow, I will tell you all that I know about Pierre Leduc … all that I suppose about that cigarette-case. … Tomorrow, I promise you. …”
It was obvious that he possessed that sort of obstinacy against which the most energetic efforts are of no avail. M. Lenormand yielded:
“Very well. I give you until tomorrow, but I warn you that, if you do not speak tomorrow, I shall be obliged to go to the examining-magistrate.”
He rang and, taking Inspector Dieuzy aside, said:
“Go with him to his hotel … and stay there. … I’ll send you two men. … And mind you keep your eyes about you. Somebody may try to get hold of him.”
The inspector went off with Steinweg; and M. Lenormand, returning to Mrs. Kesselbach, who had been violently affected by this scene, made his excuses.
“Pray accept all my regrets, madame. … I can understand how upset you must feel. …”
He questioned her as to the period at which Mr. Kesselbach renewed his relations with old Steinweg and as to the length of time for which those relations lasted. But she was so much worn-out that he did not insist.
“Am I to come back tomorrow?” she asked.
“No, it’s not necessary. I will let you know all that Steinweg says. May I see you down to your carriage? These three flights are rather steep. …”
He opened the door and stood back to let her pass. At that moment shouts were heard in the passage and people came running up, inspectors on duty, office-messengers, clerks:
“Chief! Chief!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Dieuzy! …”
“But he’s just left here. …”
“He’s been found on the staircase. …”
“Not dead? …”
“No, stunned, fainting. …”
“But the man … the man who was with him … old Steinweg?”
“He’s disappeared. …”
“Damn it!”
He rushed along the passage and down the stairs, where he found Dieuzy lying on the first-floor landing, surrounded by people who were attending to him.
He saw Gourel coming up again:
“Oh, Gourel, have you been downstairs? Did you come across anybody?”
“No, chief. …”
But Dieuzy was recovering consciousness and, almost before he had opened his eyes, mumbled:
“Here, on the landing, the little door. …”
“Oh, hang it, the door of Court 7!”5 shouted the chief detective. “Didn’t I say that it was to be kept locked? … It was certain that, sooner or later …” He seized the door-handle. “Oh, of course! The door is bolted on the other side now!”
The door was partly glazed. He smashed a pane with the butt-end of his revolver, drew the bolt and said to Gourel:
“Run through this way to the exit on the Place Dauphine. …”
He went back to Dieuzy:
“Come, Dieuzy, tell me about it. How did you come to let yourself be put into this state?”
“A blow in the pit of the stomach, chief. …”
“A blow? From that old chap? … Why, he can hardly stand on his legs! …”
“Not the old man, chief, but another, who was walking up and down the passage while Steinweg was with you and who followed us as though he were going out, too. … When we got as far as this, he asked me for a light. … I looked for my matches … Then he caught me a punch in the stomach. … I fell down, and, as I fell, I thought I saw him open that door and drag the old man with him. …”
“Would you know him again?”
“Oh yes, chief … a powerful fellow, very dark-skinned … a southerner of sorts, that’s certain. …”
“Ribeira,” snarled M. Lenormand. “Always Ribeira! … Ribeira, alias Parbury. … Oh, the impudence of the scoundrel! He was afraid of what old Steinweg might say … and came to fetch him away under my very nose!” And, stamping his foot with anger, “But, dash it, how did he know that Steinweg was here, the blackguard! It’s only four hours since I was chasing him in the Saint-Cucufa woods … and now he’s here! … How did he know? … One would think he lived inside my skin! …”
He was seized with one of those fits of dreaming in which he seemed to hear nothing and see nothing. Mrs. Kesselbach, who passed at that moment, bowed without his replying.
But a sound of footsteps in the corridor roused him from his lethargy.
“At last, is that you, Gourel?”
“I’ve found out how it was, chief,” said Gourel, panting for breath. “There were two of them. They went this way and out of the Place Dauphine. There was a motorcar waiting for them. There were two people inside: one was a man dressed in black, with a soft hat pulled over his eyes …”
“That’s he,” muttered M. Lenormand, “that’s the murderer, the accomplice of Ribeira—Parbury. And who was the other?”
“A woman, a woman without a hat, a servant-girl, it might be. … And good-looking, I’m told, with red hair.”
“Eh, what! You say she had red hair?”
“Yes.”
M. Lenormand turned round with a bound, ran down the stairs four steps at a time, hurried across the courtyard and came out on the Quai des Orfèvres:
“Stop!” he shouted.
A victoria and pair was driving off. It was Mrs. Kesselbach’s carriage. The coachman heard and pulled up his horses. M. Lenormand sprang
