"Yes, a woman of whom I am very fond, Madame Hortense Daniel, was abducted on the 17th of October."
"And this is the 22nd!"
"Yes; and the murder will be committed on the 24th."
"Horrible! Horrible! It must be prevented at all costs...."
"And I shall perhaps succeed in preventing it, with your excellency's assistance."
"But have you been to the police?"
"No. We are faced by mysteries which are, so to speak, absolute and compact, which offer no gap through which the keenest eyes can see and which it is useless to hope to clear up by ordinary methods, such as inspection of the scenes of the crimes, police enquiries, searching for finger-prints and so on. As none of those proceedings served any good purpose in the previous cases, it would be waste of time to resort to them in a seventh, similar case. An enemy who displays such skill and subtlety would not leave behind her any of those clumsy traces which are the first things that a professional detective seizes upon."
"Then what have you done?"
"Before taking any action, I have reflected. I gave four days to thinking the matter over."
M. de Lourtier-Vaneau examined his visitor closely and, with a touch of irony, asked: