"No, Madame. I never saw him in this neighborhood."
Moira gasped in relief, aware that the Commissaire, from contempt, from indifference, had been reduced to the silence of consternation. She saw it in his face and in the eyes of Monsieur Simon, who stood beside her, listening in admiration and ready to aid her with advice or question. He was on her side now. But she was reserving her strongest stroke for the last and she delivered it with growing assurance, for in her heart all along she had known through whom and by whom the murder must have been committed.
"Monsieur Joubert," she asked coolly, "you say the light was dim in the corridor. Was it too dark for you to see what the man who came out of the door looked like?"
"It was dim, Madame. But I remember him perfectly."
"You could identify him, if you saw him?"
"I think so, Madame."
"Good. Perhaps I can describe him to you, Monsieur Joubert. He was not a large man, he was smaller than you, with broad but bent shoulders, long arms like an ape's, which reached nearly to his knees, a thin face, small black eyes, a nose like the beak of an eagle——"
Joubert had started back in astonishment.
"It is he, Madame! You have described him——"
"And when he walked he had a slight limp of the left leg——"