“It's a twenty to twenty-five minute walk,” Armadale commented. “That means you must have left the beach somewhere round about half-past eleven. Now, one more question, madame. Did you recognise the voices of the man and the woman?”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux hesitated before replying.
“I should not wish to say,” she answered at last unwillingly.
A frown crossed Armadale's features at the reply, and, seeing it, she turned to Sir Clinton, as though to appeal to him.
“The automobile has already been identified, madame,” the chief constable said, answering her unspoken inquiry. “You can do no one any harm by telling us the truth.”
His words seemed to remove her disinclination.
“In this case, I reveal nothing which you ignore? Then I say that it was the voice of the young Madame Fleetwood which I have heard in the night.”
Armadale bestowed a glance on Wendover, as much as to say that his case was lock-fast. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, now that she had got her narrative off her mind, seemed to be puzzled by something. She turned to Sir Clinton.
“I am embarrassed to know how you came to discover that I was at the rock on that night. May I ask?”
Sir Clinton smiled, and with a wave of his hand he indicated the trail of footmarks across the sands which they had made in their walk.