"It is a lonely road," replied the préfet, "and never considered very safe, as it is a favourite haunt of the Chouans—but it is the direct road between Alençon and Mayenne, through Lonrai and Plélan."
"Is it known what business took the confidential valet of Madame la Marquise de Plélan on that lonely road in the middle of the night?"
"It has not been definitely established," here broke in M. le Procureur curtly, "that the murder was committed in the middle of the night."
"I thought——"
"The body was found in the early morning," continued M. de Saint-Tropèze with an air of cold condescension; "the man had been dead some hours—the leech has not pronounced how many. Maxence had no doubt many friends or relations in Alençon: it is presumed that he spent the afternoon in the city and was on his way back to Plélan in the evening when he was waylaid and murdered."
"That presumption is wrong," said the Man in Grey quietly.
"Wrong?" retorted M. le Procureur frigidly. "What do you mean?"
"I was walking home from Plélan towards Alençon in the small hours of the morning. There was no dead body lying in the road then."
"The body lay by the roadside, half in the ditch," said M. le Procureur dryly, "you may have missed seeing it."
"Possibly," rejoined the Man in Grey equally dryly, "but unlikely."