"What about the other door, in the Rue Orvieto?"
"I have posted Dieuzy there."
"With firm orders?"
"Yes, chief."
The huge hall of the hotel was crowded with anxious visitors, all commenting on the more or less accurate versions that had reached them of the crime. All the servants had been summoned by telephone and were arriving, one by one. M. Lenormand questioned them without delay. None of them was able to supply the least information. But a fifth-floor chambermaid appeared. Ten minutes earlier, or thereabouts, she had passed two gentlemen who were coming down the servants' staircase between the fifth and the fourth floors.
"They came down very fast. The one in front was holding the other by the hand. I was surprised to see those two gentlemen on the servants' staircase."
"Would you know them again?"
"Not the first one. He had his head turned the other way. He was a thin, fair man. He wore a soft black hat . . . and black clothes."
"And the other?"
"Oh, the other was an Englishman, with a big, clean-shaven face and a check suit. He had no hat on."