“Doubtless, but I went up that servants’ staircase much earlier than that. And I will tell you why. When I was brought into the villa the first time, and you watched me, bidden behind the door, do you know what I was watching myself, while I appeared to be solely occupied digging out the caviare? The fresh print of boot-nails which left the carpet near the table, where someone had spilled beer (the beer was still running down the cloth). Someone had stepped in the beer. The boot-print was not clearly visible excepting there. But from there it went to the door of the servants’ stairway and mounted the stairs. That boot was too fine to be mounting a stairway reserved to servants and that Koupriane told me had been condemned, and it was that made me notice it in a moment; but just then you entered.”
“You never told me anything about it. Of course if I had known there was a boot-print...”
“I didn’t tell you anything about it because I had my reasons for that, and, anyway, the trace dried while I was telling you about my journey.”
“Ah, why not have told me later?”
“Because I didn’t know you yet.”
“Subtle devil! You will kill me. I can no longer... Let us go into the general’s chamber. We will wake him.”
“Remain here. Remain here. I have not told you anything. That boot-print preoccupied me, and later, when I could get away from the dining-room, I was not easy until I had climbed that stairway myself and gone to see that door, where I discovered what I have just told you and what I am going to tell you now.”
“What? What? In all you have said there has been nothing about the hat-pins.”
“We have come to them now.”
“And the bouquet attack, which is going to happen again? Why? Why?”