A gesture of Betty's brought him to a halt.
"Unnoticed? Impossible!" she said bitterly. "The police have a sergent-de-ville at our gates, night and day."
Hanaud shook his head.
"He is there no longer. After you were good enough to answer me so frankly yesterday morning the questions it was my duty to put to you, I had him removed at once."
"Why, that's true," Jim exclaimed joyfully. He remembered now that when he had driven up with his luggage from the hotel in the afternoon, the street of Charles-Robert had been quite empty. Betty Harlowe stood taken aback by her surprise. Then a smile made her face friendly; her eyes danced to the smile, and she dipped to the detective a little mock curtsy. But her voice was warm with gratitude.
"I thank you, Monsieur. I did not notice yesterday that the man had been removed, or I should have thanked you before. Indeed I was not looking for so much consideration at your hands. As I told my friend Jim, I believed that you went away thinking me guilty."
Hanaud raised a hand in protest. To Jim it was the flourish of the sword with which the duellist saluted at the end of the bout. The little secret combat between these two was over. Hanaud, by removing the sergeant from before the gates, had given a sign surely not only to Betty but to all Dijon that he found nothing to justify any surveillance of her goings out and comings in, or any limitations upon her freedom.
"Then you see," Jim insisted. He was still worrying at his solution of the case like a dog with a bone. "You see Waberski had the road clear for him last night."
Betty, however, would not have it. She shook her head vigorously.
"I won't believe that Monsieur Boris is guilty of so horrible a murder. More," and she turned her great eyes pleadingly upon Hanaud, "I don't believe that any murder was committed here at all. I don't want to believe it," and for a moment her voice faltered.