"Sergeant Mullins, sir!" he announced, and withdrew from the room.
The sergeant looked inquiringly from one to the other of the two men.
"I'm sorry to intrude, gentlemen," he said. "It's Captain Newcombe, I—"
Captain Francis Newcombe waved his hand pleasantly.
"Not at all, sergeant!" he said. "I am Captain Newcombe. What can I do for you?"
"Well, sir," said the man from Scotland Yard, "I'm not saying you can do anything, and then again maybe you can." He glanced at the Frenchman, and coughed slightly.
"Mr. Cremarre is a close friend of mine," said Captain Francis Newcombe quietly. "You may speak quite freely before him, so far as I am concerned."
"Very good, sir!" said Sergeant Mullins. "Well, then, even if the papers hadn't been full of it all day, you'd probably know about it anyway, being as how you were a friend of his. It's Sir Harris Greaves, sir—Sir Harris' murder."
Captain Francis Newcombe, as though instinctively, turned toward an evening paper that lay upon the table, its great headlines screaming the murder across the front page.
"Good God, sergeant—yes!" he exclaimed. "It's a shocking thing! Shocking!" He jerked his head toward the paper, and glanced at Paul Cremarre. "You've read it, of course, Paul?"