2. With regard to the other confederates, it is admitted, in accordance with the doctor’s story, that they took to flight in his carriage. But whither did they fly? Early in the morning the horse brought back the carriage across country. In any case Marescal does not hesitate: he tears the mask from the youngest of the train-robbers and without pity denounces a young and pretty girl. All the same he does not give a description of her, thus reserving to himself the credit for an early and sensational arrest.
3. The two murdered men have been identified. [[98]]They were two brothers, Arthur and Gaston Loubeaux, in partnership in placing a brand of champagne and living at Neuilly on the banks of the Seine.
4. An important point: the revolver with which these two brothers were shot, which was found in the corridor of the express, furnishes some definite information. It was bought a fortnight before the crime by a tall and slender man whom his companion, a young woman in a veil, called William.
5. Finally there is Miss Bakersfield. No charge is brought against her. Marescal, deprived of his proofs does not dare to chance it and keeps prudently silent. An ordinary passenger, a lady well-known in society in London and on the Riviera, she is traveling to join her father at Monte Carlo; and that is all that can be said about her. Was she murdered by mistake? That is possible. But why were the two Loubeaux murdered? That and the rest of the business is shrouded in darkness.
“And since I’m not in the humor to bother my head about it any longer, I’ll stop thinking about it; let the police go pottering about at their own sweet will, and act,” said Ralph to himself.
If Ralph talked about acting in so determined a fashion, it was because he knew at last how to make a beginning. The local papers published a paragraph which ran: [[99]]
“Our distinguished guest, Lord Bakersfield, after having attended the funeral of his unfortunate daughter, has returned to the Riviera and will pass the end of the season, as is his custom, at the Bellevue Palace Hotel, at Monte Carlo.”
That very evening Ralph took a room at the Bellevue Palace next to the suite of three rooms occupied by the Englishman. All these rooms, like the rest of the rooms on the ground floor, looked out on to a large garden, which extended the whole length of the back of the hotel. From the long window of each of them a short flight of steps led down into the garden.
The next day he caught sight of the Englishman as he went down the steps from his room into the garden. He was a man still young, with a rather heavy face, rendered the heavier by the expression of deep sadness at the loss of his daughter.
Two days later as Ralph was thinking of sending in his card to him with the request for a private interview, he saw in the corridor a man who was knocking at the door of the room next his. It was Marescal.