"Well, gentlemen?"
"Mademoiselle, pardon. I'm sorry to disturb you, but I am after the body of one M. Lerouge."
"Then why don't you go and get him?" snapped the girl.
"Pardieu! that is precisely why we are here, mon enfant. He——"
"He is not here."
"Come, now, that will not do, mademoiselle. At least he was here a few moments ago.—Where is that dolt Benoit?"
"M. Lerouge is not here, I tell you; never was here in his life!"
"Oh!"
It was M. Benoit, the concierge. His astonishment was undoubtedly genuine; possibly as much at her brazen denial as at his own error in believing her a police decoy.
"Mademoiselle ought to know," he added, in reply to official inquiry.