Valenglay burst out laughing.
"Oh, what a joke! What a joke! That infernal Lenormand! Of all the first-rate notions! Well done, Lenormand! It's long since I enjoyed so good a laugh."
M. Lenormand turned to the attorney-general:
"Mr. Attorney, you won't forget to fill in Master Daileron's profession on the warrant, will you? Chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior."
"Oh, good! . . . Oh, capital! . . . Chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior!" spluttered Valenglay, holding his sides. "Oh, this wonderful Lenormand gets hold of ideas that would never occur to anybody else! The public is clamoring for an arrest. . . . Whoosh, he flings at its head my chief messenger . . . Auguste . . . the model servant! Well, Lenormand, my dear fellow, I knew you had a certain gift of imagination, but I never suspected that it would go so far as this! The impertinence of it!"
From the commencement of this scene, Auguste had not stirred a limb and seemed to understand nothing of what was going on around him. His face, the typical face of a good, loyal, faithful serving-man, seemed absolutely bewildered. He looked at the gentlemen turn and turn about, with a visible effort to catch the meaning of their words.
M. Lenormand said a few words to Gourel, who went out. Then, going up to Auguste and speaking with great decision, he said:
"There's no way out of it. You're caught. The best thing to do, when the game is lost, is to throw down your cards. What were you doing on Tuesday?"
"I? Nothing. I was here."
"You lie. You were off duty. You went out for the day."