"I ordered him back into the room, and questioned him sharply. He denied all knowledge of the matter, and appeared to be deeply hurt at my suspicions."
"Did you believe him?"
"I do not know. The matter is incomprehensible. Noël has been in my service for eight years. I supposed him absolutely incorruptible—absolutely honest. He also insists that after I left the bedroom, and came into the dressing-room to be shaved, he did not leave me, nor again enter the bedroom; in which case, he could not have committed the theft."
"Is this true?"
"So far as I can remember, it is." He spoke in a slightly hesitating way, and Duvall at once noticed it. "You are, then, not absolutely sure?" he asked.
"I feel confident that Noël did not leave me, nor enter the bedroom. If I hesitated for a moment, it arose from the fact that on one or two occasions I have fallen asleep while being shaved, but this morning I am quite sure that I did not do so."
"Yet you were up late last night, and awoke feeling sleepy and tired."
"Yes." The Ambassador nodded. "That is true."
"Is there any other door to the bedroom?"
"None, except that which opens into my bath. The bathroom has no windows. It is an inside room."