For all that, Louise d'Ernemont's words had damped their enthusiasm. Their faces began to look sullen and I felt an atmosphere as of anguish weighing upon us.
At half-past one, the two lean sisters felt faint and sat down. Then the fat gentleman in the soiled suit suddenly rounded on the notary:
"It's you, Maître Valandier, who are to blame.... You ought to have brought the captain here by main force.... He's a humbug, that's quite clear."
He gave me a savage look, and the footman, in his turn, flung muttered curses at me.
I confess that their reproaches seemed to me well-founded and that Lupin's absence annoyed me greatly:
"He won't come now," I whispered to the lawyer.
And I was thinking of beating a retreat, when the eldest of the brats appeared at the door, yelling:
"There's some one coming!... A motor-cycle!..."
A motor was throbbing on the other side of the wall. A man on a motor-bicycle came tearing down the lane at the risk of breaking his neck. Suddenly, he put on his brakes, outside the door, and sprang from his machine.
Under the layer of dust which covered him from head to foot, we could see that his navy-blue reefer-suit, his carefully creased trousers, his black felt hat and patent-leather boots were not the clothes in which a man usually goes cycling.