“But I do know.”
“How?”
“I telephoned to him a few minutes later and he answered. More than that, to sweep away any trace of doubt, he told me that he had rung me up but that he had been cut off.”
M. Masseron thought for a moment and then said:
“Did he go out this morning?”
“Ask Mme. Essarès.”
Without turning round, manifestly wishing to avoid Belval’s eyes, Coralie answered:
“I don’t think that he went out. The suit he was wearing at the time of his death was an indoor suit.”
“Did you see him after last night?”
“He came and knocked at my room three times this morning, between seven and nine o’clock. I did not open the door. At about eleven o’clock I started off alone; I heard him call old Siméon and tell him to go with me. Siméon caught me up in the street. That is all I know.”