"No, sir," she replied, looking surprised. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, for no particular reason," said the inspector with affected indifference, but at the same time he was contemplating a large nickel pump that lay on a what-not, a syringe holding perhaps half a pint, like those that chauffeurs use. He looked at it steadfastly for several minutes. His next question was addressed to the gendarme who was still on his knees by the trunk.
"We have found one yellow stain on the neck; you will very likely find some more. Have a look at the wrists and the calves of the legs and the stomach. But do it carefully, so as not to disturb the body." While the gendarme began to obey his chief's order, carefully undoing the clothing on the corpse, Juve looked at the concierge again.
"Who did the work of this flat?"
"I did, sir."
Juve pointed to the velvet curtain that screened the door between the little anteroom and the room in which they were.
"How did you come to leave that curtain unhooked at the top, without putting it to rights?"
Mme. Doulenques looked at it.
"It's the first time I've seen it like that," she said apologetically; "the curtain could not have been unhooked when I did the room last without my noticing it. Anyhow, it hasn't been like that long. I ought to say that as M. Gurn was seldom here I didn't do the place out thoroughly very often."
"When did you do it out last?"