“Is it Mme. Essarès’ opinion also?”
She reddened slightly and answered:
“Yes.”
“And old Siméon’s?”
“Oh,” replied the magistrate, “old Siméon is wandering in his mind! To listen to him, you would think that everything was about to happen all over again, that Mme. Essarès is threatened with danger and that she ought to take to flight at once. That is all that I have been able to get out of him. However, he took me to an old disused door that opens out of the garden on a lane running at right angles with the Rue Raynouard; and here he showed me first the watch-dog’s dead body and next some footprints between the door and the flight of steps near the library. But you know those foot-prints, do you not? They belong to you and your Senegalese. As for the death of the watch-dog, I can put that down to your Senegalese, can’t I?”
Patrice was beginning to understand. The magistrate’s reticence, his explanation, his agreement with Coralie: all this was gradually becoming plain. He put the question frankly:
“So there was no murder?”
“No.”
“Then there will be no magistrate’s examination?”
“No.”