I did then what might seem to be a callous thing. I left them all crowding around the body of the dead man. I let even Felicia be led back to her room by her companion. I took the lift downstairs, and I made my way into the café.
"Where is Louis?" I asked the first waiter I saw.
"He is away for a minute or two, sir," the man answered.
Almost as he spoke Louis entered from the further end of the restaurant. He did not see me, and I noticed that his fingers were arranging his tie, and that as he passed a mirror he glanced at his shirt-front. When I came face to face with him he was breathing fast as though he had been running.
"Louis," I said, "five flights of stairs are trying at our time of life!"
He looked at me blankly, and as one who does not comprehend.
"Five flights of stairs, monsieur!" he repeated.
I nodded.
"I myself came down by the lift," I said. "Louis, Delora is lying in the corridor outside his rooms with a bullet through his forehead. I am wondering whether he shot himself, or whether—"
"Or whether what?" Louis asked softly.