“Do you imply that the maid might be of use in this inquiry?”
“Most assuredly I do. As I tell you, she was constantly in and out of the car, and more or less intimate with several of the passengers.”
“Including her mistress, the Countess,” put in M. Floçon.
The General laughed pleasantly.
“Most ladies are, I presume, on intimate terms with their maids. They say no man is a hero to his valet. It is the same, I suppose, with the other sex.”
“So intimate,” went on the little detective, with much malicious emphasis, “that now the maid has disappeared lest she might be asked inconvenient questions about her mistress.”
“Disappeared? You are sure?”
“She cannot be found, that is all we know.”
“It is as I thought, then. She it was who left the car!” cried Sir Charles, with so much vehemence that the officials were startled out of their dignified reserve, and shouted back almost in a breath: “Explain yourself. Quick, quick. What in God’s name do you mean?”
“I had my suspicions from the first, and I will tell you why. At Laroche the car emptied, as you may have heard; every one except the Countess, at least, went over to the restaurant for early coffee; I with the rest. I was one of the first to finish, and I strolled back to the platform to get a few whiffs of a cigarette. At that moment I saw, or thought I saw, the end of a skirt disappearing into the sleeping-car. I concluded it was this maid, Hortense, who was taking her mistress a cup of coffee. Then my brother came up, we exchanged a few words, and entered the car together.”