“And afterwards?” asked the Countess, whose nervousness had if anything increased during the whispered colloquy of the officials.
“Ah, afterwards! Who knows?” was the reply, with a shrug of the shoulders, all most enigmatic and unsatisfactory.
“What have we against her?” said the Judge, as soon as they had gained the absolute privacy of the sleeping-car.
“The bottle of laudanum and the porter’s condition. He was undoubtedly drugged,” answered the detective; and the discussion which followed took the form of a dialogue between them, for the Commissary took no part in it.
“Yes; but why by the Countess? How do we know that positively?”
“It is her bottle,” said M. Floçon.
“Her story may be true—that she missed it, that the maid took it.”
“We have nothing whatever against the maid. We know nothing about her.”
“No. Except that she has disappeared. But that tells more against her mistress. It is all very vague. I do not see my way quite, as yet.”
“But the fragment of lace, the broken beading? Surely, M. le Juge, they are a woman’s, and only one woman was in the car—”