An old lady with white hair, a young woman whom he recognized by instinct as Mademoiselle Lefarge, and a man of about thirty or perhaps thirty-five, clean-shaved, English-looking, and with the stamp of a barrister.
The detective’s quick eye and even quicker brain took in the room and its occupants at a glance.
In a moment he comprehended the status of the two women before him, but the man puzzled him.
The women were French to their fingertips, but the man was English.
Needless to say the man was Hellier.
Cécile Lefarge gazed at the newcomer for a moment and then advanced, with hand out-stretched, in such a kindly and frank manner as quite to captivate even the unemotional Freyberger.
“I need not ask you,” she said, “for I am quite sure you are the gentleman mentioned by M. Hamard as having telegraphed to Paris for an interview with me. I am Cécile Lefarge.”
“Mademoiselle,” replied the detective, with a charming modesty that was half false. “The communication to M. Hamard came from the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. I am but the humble instrument deputed by him to inquire into a certain case. A crime has been committed in England. In the investigation of the matter, I, by a strange chance, came upon the records of a crime committed in Paris—”
“Eight years ago.”
“Pardon me, mademoiselle, eight years and five months ago.”