“Then he must be very hard to satisfy,” said the Duke.
“Oh, in any other matter he’s open to reason,” said M. Formery; “but Lupin is his fixed idea; it’s an obsession—almost a mania.”
“But yet he never catches him,” said the Duke.
“No; and he never will. His very obsession by Lupin hampers him. It cramps his mind and hinders its working,” said M. Formery.
He resumed his meditative pacing, stopped again, and said:
“But considering everything, especially the absence of any traces of violence, combined with her entire disappearance, I have come to another conclusion. Victoire is the key to the mystery. She is the accomplice. She never slept in her bed. She unmade it to put us off the scent. That, at any rate, is something gained, to have found the accomplice. We shall have this good news, at least, to tell M, Gournay-Martin on his arrival.”
“Do you really think that she’s the accomplice?” said the Duke.
“I’m dead sure of it,” said M. Formery. “We will go up to her room and make another thorough examination of it.”
Guerchard’s head popped up above the window-sill:
“My dear M. Formery,” he said, “I beg that you will not take the trouble.”