“Ta, ta, ta! They will tell us if you will not. And you had better be careful, lest you obstruct justice. Speak out, sir, and beware. What did you intend to do?”
“To act according to circumstances. If my suspicions were confirmed—”
“What suspicions?”
“Why—that this banker was carrying off any large sum in cash, notes, securities, as in effect he was.”
“Ah! You know that? How?”
“By my own eyes. I looked into his compartment once and saw him in the act of counting them over, a great quantity, in fact—”
Again the officials looked at each other significantly. They had got at last to a motive for the crime.
“And that, of course, would have justified his arrest?”
“Exactly. I proposed, directly we arrived in Paris, to claim the assistance of your police and take him into custody. But his fate interposed.”
There was a pause, a long pause, for another important point had been reached in the inquiry: the motive for the murder had been made clear, and with it the presumption against the Countess gained terrible strength.