The quiet voice startled us. Giraud was standing outside looking in through the open window.
He leaped lightly into the room, and advanced to the table.
“Here I am, M. le juge, at your service. Accept my excuses for not presenting myself sooner.”
“Not at all. Not at all,” said the magistrate, rather confused.
“Of course I am only a detective,” continued the other. “I know nothing of interrogatories. Were I conducting one, I should be inclined to do so without an open window. Any one standing outside can so easily hear all that passes. … But no matter.”
M. Hautet flushed angrily. There was evidently going to be no love lost between the examining magistrate and the detective in charge of the case. They had fallen foul of each other at the start. Perhaps in any event it would have been much the same. To Giraud, all examining magistrates were fools, and to M. Hautet who took himself seriously, the casual manner of the Paris detective could not fail to give offence.
“Eh bien, M. Giraud,” said the magistrate rather sharply. “Without doubt you have been employing your time to a marvel? You have the names of the assassins for us, have you not? And also the precise spot where they find themselves now?”
Unmoved by this irony, Giraud replied:
“I know at least where they have come from.”
“Comment?”