“I come, madame,” he resumed, “on very serious business. Your presence at M. Gerdy’s—”
“Ah,” cried Juliette, “he already knows of my visit? Then he must employ a detective.”
“My dear child—” began Tabaret, paternally.
“Oh! I know, sir, what your errand is. Noel has sent you here to scold me. He forbade my going to his house, but I couldn’t help it. It’s annoying to have a puzzle for a lover, a man whom one knows nothing whatever about, a riddle in a black coat and a white cravat, a sad and mysterious being—”
“You have been imprudent.”
“Why? Because he is going to get married? Why does he not admit it then?”
“Suppose that it is not true.”
“Oh, but it is! He told that old shark Clergeot so, who repeated it to me. Any way, he must be plotting something in that head of his; for the last month he has been so peculiar, he has changed so, that I hardly recognize him.”
Old Tabaret was especially anxious to know whether Noel had prepared an alibi for the evening of the crime. For him that was the grand question. If he had, he was certainly guilty; if not, he might still be innocent. Madame Juliette, he had no doubt, could enlighten him on that point.
Consequently he had presented himself with his lesson all prepared, his little trap all set.