"Ah, the drama in which a great lady was implicated ... to her detriment! Lady ... Lady Beltham?"
"You have got it! These Dollons—Jacques and Elizabeth—did you know it?—happen to be the children of old Dollon, who was murdered in the train—an extraordinary murder!—when on his way to Paris, to give evidence in the Gurn case?"
"Why, of course! I remember perfectly!" declared the editorial secretary: "Dollon, the father, was the Marquise de Langrune's steward!... The old lady who was murdered!... Isn't that so?"
"That's it!... But, after the death of his mistress, he entered the service of the Baroness de Vibray, she who was assassinated yesterday!"
"Well, I must say they have not been favoured by fortune," said the secretary jokingly. "But, look here, Fandor—like father, like son, eh?... If this young Dollon has murdered Madame de Vibray, doesn't that make you think that his father was the murderer of the Marquise de Langrune?"
Jérôme Fandor shook his head:
"No, old boy, yesterday's crime was ordinary, even common-place, but the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, on the contrary, gave the police no end of bother."
"They did not find out anything, did they?"
"Why, yes!... Don't you remember?... Naturally enough, it must all seem rather remote to you, but I have all the details as clearly in mind as if they had happened only yesterday.... The Gurn affair was one of the first I had a hand in, with Juve ... it was in connection with that very affair I made my start here on La Capitale."[2]
Fandor grew pale: