Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.
"Why not?" he asked.
"The case is in your hands," said the Commissaire. To Ricardo the proceedings seemed singularly irregular. But if the Commissaire was content, it was not for him to object.
"And where is my excellent friend Perrichet?" asked Hanaud; and leaning over the balustrade he called him up from the hall.
"We will now," said Hanaud, "have a glance into this poor murdered woman's room."
The room was opposite to Celia's. Besnard produced the key and unlocked the door. Hanaud took off his hat upon the threshold and then passed into the room with his companions. Upon the bed, outlined under a sheet, lay the rigid form of Mme. Dauvray. Hanaud stepped gently to the bedside and reverently uncovered the face. For a moment all could see it—livid, swollen, unhuman.
"A brutal business," he said in a low voice, and when he turned again to his companions his face was white and sickly. He replaced the sheet and gazed about the room.
It was decorated and furnished in the same style as the salon downstairs, yet the contrast between the two rooms was remarkable.
Downstairs, in the salon, only a chair had been overturned. Here there was every sign of violence and disorder. An empty safe stood open in one corner; the rugs upon the polished floor had been tossed aside; every drawer had been torn open, every wardrobe burst; the very bed had been moved from its position.
"It was in this safe that Madame Dauvray hid her jewels each night," said the Commissaire as Hanaud gazed about the room.