"I had just gone in to get my napkin, when I heard you ring," Mme. Bernardet said.
Bernardet made a sign to Moniche not to advance. He was as plump and as gay as his wife. His moustache was red, his double chin smooth-shaven and rosy, his eyes had a sharp, cunning look, his head was round and closely cropped.
The three daughters, clothed alike in Scotch plaid, were posing in front of a photographic apparatus which stood on a tripod. The eldest was about twelve years of age; the youngest a child of five. They were all three strangely alike.
M. Bernardet, in honor of his birthday, was taking a picture of his daughters. The ferret who, from morning till night, tracked robbers and malefactors into their hiding places, was taking his recreation in his damp garden. The sweet idyl of this hidden life repaid him for his unceasing investigations, for his trouble and fatiguing man-hunts through Paris.
"There!" he said, clapping the cap over the lens. "That is all! Go and play now, my dears. I am at your service, Moniche."
He shut up his photographic apparatus, pulling out the tripod from the deep soil in which it was imbedded, while his daughters joyously ran to their mother. The young girls stood gazing at Moniche with their great blue eyes, piercing and clear. Bernardet turned to look at him, and at once divined that something had happened.
"You are as white as your handkerchief, Moniche," he said.
"Ah! Monsieur Bernardet! It is enough to terrify one! There has been a murder in the house."
"A murder?"
His face, which had been so gay and careless, suddenly took on a strange expression, at once tense and serious; the large blue eyes shone as with an inward fire.