When the servant reached the second floor she threw open the front sitting-room door and stood aside to allow us to enter.
“This is not the third floor, my good girl,” exclaimed the senior constable; “this is the second floor.”
“Well, sir! mistress calls it the third floor,” the servant replied.
At this moment Pasquale, who had joined us, remarked pleasantly, “The girl is right; her mistress is an American and counts the ground-floor as the first floor; these are the rooms which I occupy.”
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed the reassured servant, “these are Mr. Pasquale’s rooms.”
My brain was in a perfect whirl—these my friend’s rooms! I had always imagined that he lived on the floor above, misled by the American landlady’s method of reckoning the floors. I glanced at Pasquale, but he was unconscious of my look.
Turning to the servant he said, “Tell your mistress that the police wish to inspect M. Goddecourt’s rooms, and bring us the key of his door.”
“M. Leon Goddecourt is the elderly French gentleman I spoke to you about as occupying the rooms at the rear.” This was Pasquale’s explanation to me.
When the servant returned with the key Pasquale led the way into the passage communicating with the rooms at the back.
The occupant of the rooms was absent, and there was no hindrance to an exhaustive examination. There was no door connecting with the rooms of the house in which I lived. Nothing was discovered. The police were turning to go, impressed, I believe, with the idea that I had been hoaxing them, or else that the excitement of the murder had driven me crazy for the time, when Pasquale, addressing me, inquired whether I was certain that these were the rooms into which I was looking when I saw the supposed murderer. “You can see for yourself, Wyndham,” he remarked, “that your rooms and mine are not of the same length, and it was very easy for you to make a mistake by concluding that the dimensions were the same.”