“What?”
“I don’t know. But my daughter and my niece will tell you, with absolute certainty, that they saw two men in succession cross the park and that those two men were carrying fairly heavy loads.”
“The young ladies—”
“The young ladies may have been dreaming, you think? I should be tempted to believe it, for I have been exhausting myself in inquiries and suppositions ever since this morning. However, it is easy enough to question them.”
The two cousins were sent for to the big drawing room. Suzanne, still quite pale and trembling, could hardly speak. Raymonde, who was more energetic, more of a man, better looking, too, with the golden glint in her brown eyes, described the events of the night and the part which she had played in them.
“So I may take it, mademoiselle, that your evidence is positive?”
“Absolutely. The men who went across the park were carrying things away with them.”
“And the third man?”
“He went from here empty-handed.”
“Could you describe him to us?”