“Yes, there is. I need your assistance. What happened yesterday, may happen again to-morrow, as we do not know how he entered, or how he escaped, or why, a few hours later, he returned the goods.”
“Ah! you don’t know—”
The idea of a problem to be solved quickened the interest of Sherlock Holmes.
“Very well, let us make a search—at once—and alone, if possible.”
Devanne understood, and conducted the Englishman to the salon. In a dry, crisp voice, in sentences that seemed to have been prepared in advance, Holmes asked a number of questions about the events of the preceding evening, and enquired also concerning the guests and the members of the household. Then he examined the two volumes of the “Chronique,” compared the plans of the subterranean passage, requested a repetition of the sentences discovered by Father Gélis, and then asked:
“Was yesterday the first time you have spoken those two sentences to any one?”
“Yes.”
“You had never communicated then to Horace Velmont?”
“No.”
“Well, order the automobile. I must leave in an hour.”