"Yes, Monsieur, and for three years before that. I was with Madame Georges from the day she first entered this house to the day she was carried out of it in her coffin. I am Barbe Leroux, born Girot. If you have heard of the murder of Marie Prévol, you must have heard of Barbe Girot, her servant. I was one of the chief witnesses before the Juge d'Instruction."
"Madame, I have read your evidence," replied Heathcote. "I am deeply interested in the history of that terrible murder, and I rejoice in having met a lady who can, if she pleases, help me to unravel a mystery which baffled the police."
"The police!" exclaimed Madame Leroux contemptuously; "the police are a parcel of no-great-things, or they would have found the man who killed my mistress and Monsieur de Maucroix in a week."
"Provided that he stopped in Paris to be found. But it seems evident that he got away from Paris, and instantly, or he would have been taken red-handed."
"I have reason to know that he was in Paris long after the murder," said Barbe decisively.
"What reason? Pray consider, Madame, that I am brought to this house by no idle curiosity, no morbid love of the horrible. It is my mission to discover the murderer of Marie Prévol. Give me your confidence, I entreat, Madame. You who loved your mistress must desire to see her assassin punished."
Barbe Leroux shrugged her shoulders with an air of doubt.
"I don't quite know that, Monsieur. Yes, I loved my mistress; but I pity her murderer. Come, we cannot talk in this passage all day. Will you walk into my room, Monsieur, and seat yourself for a little while? and then, if you are anxious to see the apartment in which that poor lady lived, it may perhaps be managed."
"You are very good," said Heathcote, slipping a napoleon into Barbe Leroux's broad palm.
Had it been half a napoleon she would have considered herself repaid for ordinary civility; but the larger coin secured extraordinary devotion. She would, in her own phrase, have thrown herself into the fire for this gentlemanly stranger, whose hat and coat were so decidedly English, but who spoke almost as a Parisian.