“No, mademoiselle; I heard footsteps go by; that might have been the man they tracked and thought was Mr. Ivan.”
“That will do,” Sophie said, motioning Drusa to conduct the gendarme into the adjoining rooms. “It’s your lead, I believe, and spades are trumps,” she continued, turning to me. I was shaking so I could scarcely hold my cards.
“Did you find him?” she asked, mockingly, when the gendarme returned from a search I knew had been of the most formal kind.
“Not this time, but later on,” he replied, with a look which made her face nearly the color of her dress.
At this point there came a scratching and pounding at the outer door, such as I had heard in old Ursula’s room.
“It is Chance,” I said, involuntarily, while Jack sprang up, nearly upsetting the table in his haste.
“Chance!” he repeated. “I must see him.”
I bade him sit down and be quiet, for it seemed to me that Chance’s advent into that room would be fraught with evil.
“You did a manly thing to bring your dog to hunt my brother! I would not have believed it of you!” Sophie said; and the officer replied: “I did not bring him, nor know that he followed me.”
“Then you will not let him in. I am afraid of dogs,” Sophie continued, her face now white with terror, as the scratching and whining went on, and in her eyes there was a piteous appeal.