“It was really a woman, then?” [[66]]
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t able to keep her?”
“Yes. Only—” said the Commissary, and paused.
“Only what?”
“Well, she left some rolled-up sacks in her place.”
In abandoning the pursuit of the fugitives Ralph had followed, among other motives, the wish for immediate revenge. Baffled, he wished to baffle in his turn and to score off some one else as he had been scored off. Marescal was to hand, the appointed victim; Marescal from whom he hoped to tear other confidences, Marescal whose distress was almost on the instant giving him a keen pleasure.
“It’s a catastrophe!” he cried in the most sympathetic accents.
“You may well say so,” the Commissary groaned.
“And you have no clew?” asked Ralph eagerly.