"Tiens!" he said, tickling his scalp with a pen-holder. "Such a one booked to Nantes. I remember thinking that she had a lot of money, because she picked a hundred-franc note out of a fair-sized packet."
"Was she a Bretonne?"
"Yes, Madame. Wait one moment." He called a porter. "Pierre," he cried, "you had charge of a lady's baggage by the nine o'clock train to Nantes. Did she come from Pont Aven?"
Pierre thought she did, but could not be sure. If so, the local conductor had brought her box across to the departure platform. At any rate, she was not a known resident in Quimperlé. And she possessed one trunk, a black one, iron-clamped, and studded with brass nails. Madeleine owned a similar box: but so did half the inhabitants of Brittany.
With that Yvonne had to be satisfied. Madeleine might or might not have gone to Nantes; whence, if so minded, she could travel on to Paris in the same train. It was difficult to account for her possession of the amount of money spoken of by the observer behind the wicket; but Mrs. Carmac solved the riddle at once.
"Until I am convinced to the contrary," she declared, "I shall believe that your friend is on her way to meet Rupert Fosdyke somewhere. Of course he would provide her with ample means. Gold is the most potent of all lures."
Yvonne shuddered. Her mother was least lovable when she became cynical. The girl felt unutterably sad and depressed.
It was a relief, in a sense, when the car sped down the hill into Pont Aven, and she could make some excuse to hurry home. Her father and Lorry, thinking she would be absent till a much later hour, had gone out, tempted by the continued fine weather.
But she was given no respite from her misery. Madame Brissac had posted an urchin to watch for the return of the motorists. She came now to gather tidings of her wayward niece, and Yvonne was obliged to confess that Madeleine was not at her cousin's house.