"We are about to interrogate the Comte de la Roche. The Juge d'Instruction begs that you will be present."
"Quickly, my suit, Georges! I must hasten myself."
A quarter of an hour later, spick and span in his brown suit, Poirot entered the Examining Magistrate's room. M. Caux was already there, and both he and M. Carrège greeted Poirot with polite empressement.
"The affair is somewhat discouraging," murmured M. Caux.
"It appears that the Comte arrived in Nice the day before the murder."
"If that is true, it will settle your affair nicely for you," responded Poirot.
M. Carrège cleared his throat.
"We must not accept this alibi without very cautious inquiry," he declared. He struck the bell upon the table with his hand.
In another minute a tall dark man, exquisitely dressed, with a somewhat haughty cast of countenance, entered the room. So very aristocratic-looking was the Count, that it would have seemed sheer heresy even to whisper that his father had been an obscure corn-chandler in Nantes—which, as a matter of fact, was the case. Looking at him, one would have been prepared to swear that innumerable ancestors of his must have perished by the guillotine in the French Revolution.
"I am here, gentlemen," said the Count haughtily. "May I ask why you wish to see me?"