"I have looked at that hand," declared Ganimard, going up to the corpse, "and, as you can see for yourselves, there is only a plain gold ring."
"Look inside the palm," said the servant.
Ganimard unfolded the clenched fingers. The bezel was turned inward and, contained within the bezel, glittered the blue diamond.
"The devil!" muttered Ganimard, absolutely nonplussed. "This is beyond me!"
"And I hope that you will now give up suspecting that unfortunate Arsène Lupin?" said M. Dudouis, with a grin.
Ganimard took his time, reflected and retorted, in a sententious tone:
"It is just when a thing gets beyond me that I suspect Arsène Lupin most."
These were the first discoveries effected by the police on the day following upon that strange murder, vague, inconsistent discoveries to which the subsequent inquiry imparted neither consistency nor certainty. The movements of Antoinette Bréhat remained as absolutely inexplicable as those of the blonde lady, nor was any light thrown upon the identity of that mysterious creature with the golden hair who had killed Baron d'Hautrec without taking from his finger the fabulous diamond from the royal crown of France.
Moreover and especially, the curiosity which it inspired raised the murder above the level of a sordid crime to that of a mighty, if heinous trespass, the mystery of which irritated the public mind.