"But surely——" protested the Man in Grey.
"Madame la Marquise was indeed very much at home," continued the other with becoming sternness, "seeing that she entertained the children of the Convent School here to déjeuner at midday and games all the afternoon."
The secret agent now appeared overwhelmed with confusion at his stupid blunder.
"I am very sorry," he murmured haltingly. "There's some mistake on my part—I understood my sister to say that she was here yesterday—it must have been some other day——"
"Very likely!" retorted the majordomo with a sneer; and giving the plebeian police agent the supercilious stare which so much impertinence deserved, he finally closed the monumental doors of the château upon the unwelcome visitors.
"Another snub!" remarked the commissary of police as he descended the steps beside his silent colleague. "And why you trumped up that story about your sister and a maid, I cannot imagine!" he added with withering contempt.
But the Man in Grey apparently did not hear him, He was murmuring under his breath:
"Clever enough to have secured an alibi! I might have guessed it! And such an actress! But, then, how in Heaven's name was it done? How? And by whom?"
V
The Man in Grey had allowed the commissary of police to return to Caen, but he seemed to find it impossible to tear himself away from the neighbourhood of Trévargan. He felt that the lordly château held a grim secret within its walls, and he could not rest until he had wrung it from them.