Convinced or not, M. Filleul did not look as if he liked the story. He asked, gruffly:
“What are you doing here?”
“Why—I’m—I’m improving my mind.”
“There are schools for that: yours, for instance.”
“You forget, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that this is the twenty-third of April and that we are in the middle of the Easter holidays.”
“Well?”
“Well, I have every right to spend my holidays as I please.”
“Your father—”
“My father lives at the other end of the country, in Savoy, and he himself advised me to take a little trip on the North Coast.”
“With a false beard?”
“Oh, no! That’s my own idea. At school, we talk a great deal about mysterious adventures; we read detective stories, in which people disguise themselves; we imagine any amount of terrible and intricate cases. So I thought I would amuse myself; and I put on this false beard. Besides, I enjoyed the advantage of being taken seriously and I pretended to be a Paris reporter. That is how, last night, after an uneventful period of more than a week, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of my Rouen colleague; and, this morning, when he heard of the Ambrumésy murder, he very kindly suggested that I should come with him and that we should share the cost of a fly.”
Isidore Beautrelet said all this with a frank and artless simplicity of which it was impossible not to feel the charm. M. Filleul himself, though maintaining a distrustful reserve, took a certain pleasure in listening to him. He asked him, in a less peevish tone:
“And are you satisfied with your expedition?”
“Delighted! All the more as I had never been present at a case of the sort and I find that this one is not lacking in interest.”
“Nor in that mysterious intricacy which you prize so highly—”
“And which is so stimulating, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction! I know nothing more exciting than to see all the facts coming up out of the shadow, clustering together, so to speak, and gradually forming the probable truth.”
“The probable truth! You go pretty fast, young man! Do you suggest that you have your little solution of the riddle ready?”
“Oh, no!” replied Beautrelet, with a laugh.
“Only—it seems to me that there are certain points on which it is not impossible to form an opinion; and others, even, are so precise as to warrant—a conclusion.”
“Oh, but this is becoming very curious and I shall get to know something at last! For I confess, to my great confusion, that I know nothing.”
“That is because you have not had time to reflect, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. The great thing is to reflect. Facts very seldom fail to carry their own explanation!”
“And, according to you, the facts which we have just ascertained carry their own explanation?”
“Don’t you think so yourself? In any case, I have ascertained none besides those which are set down in the official report.”
“Good! So that, if I were to ask you which were the objects stolen from this room—”
“I should answer that I know.”
“Bravo! My gentleman knows more about it than the owner himself. M. de Gesvres has everything accounted for: M. Isidore Beautrelet has not. He misses a bookcase in three sections and a life-size statue which nobody ever noticed. And, if I asked you the name of the murderer?”
“I should again answer that I know it.”
All present gave a start. The deputy and the journalist drew nearer. M. de Gesvres and the two girls, impressed by Beautrelet’s tranquil assurance, listened attentively.
“You know the murderer’s name?”
“Yes.”
“And the place where he is concealed, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
M. Filleul rubbed his hands.
“What a piece of luck! This capture will do honor to my career. And can you make me these startling revelations now?”
“Yes, now—or rather, if you do not mind, in an hour or two, when I shall have assisted at your inquiry to the end.”
“No, no, young man, here and now, please.” At that moment Raymonde de Saint-Véran, who had not taken her eyes from Isidore Beautrelet since the beginning of this scene, came up to M. Filleul:
“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction—”
“Yes, mademoiselle?”
She hesitated for two or three seconds, with her eyes fixed on Beautrelet, and then, addressing M. Filleul:
“I should like you to ask monsieur the reason why he was walking yesterday in the sunk road which leads up to the little door.”
It was an unexpected and dramatic stroke. Isidore Beautrelet appeared nonplussed:
“I, mademoiselle? I? You saw me yesterday?”
Raymonde remained thoughtful, with her eyes upon Beautrelet, as though she were trying to settle her own conviction, and then said, in a steady voice:
“At four o’clock in the afternoon, as I was crossing the wood, I met in the sunk road a young man of monsieur’s height, dressed like him and wearing a beard cut in the same way—and I received a very clear impression that he was trying to hide.”
“And it was I?”
“I could not say that as an absolute certainty, for my recollection is a little vague. Still—still, I think so—if not, it would be an unusual resemblance—”
M. Filleul was perplexed. Already taken in by one of the confederates, was he now going to let himself be tricked by this self-styled schoolboy? Certainly, the young man’s manner spoke in his favor; but one can never tell!
“What have you to say, sir?”
“That mademoiselle is mistaken, as I can easily show you with one word. Yesterday, at the time stated, I was at Veules.”
“You will have to prove it, you will have to. In any case, the position is not what it was. Sergeant, one of your men will keep monsieur company.”
Isidore Beautrelet’s face denoted a keen vexation.
“Will it be for long?”
“Long enough to collect the necessary information.”
“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I beseech you to collect it with all possible speed and discretion.”
“Why?”
“My father is an old man. We are very much attached to each other—and
