“Sir,” continued the domestic, who with blanched face and eyes unnaturally dilated, was staring at his master and Père Moche, and above all at the young woman lying on the floor, “Sir, it is the law!”
“The law!” cried Ascott; “you are mad, John!”
“No, sir, no, I am not mad; it is a Judge, a Court of Law, I don’t know what all!”
His master was soon to be enlightened. Just as a little before M. Moche had pushed into the bedroom without being announced, with a like lack of ceremony three individuals had made their way along the corridor to the door of the room, and now stepped across the threshold. One of them advanced in front of the other two, a man of forty or so, short, with a jovial-looking face and a heavy, black moustache; he pulled from his pocket a tricolour scarf, which he displayed before Ascott’s astonished eyes.
“I am the Commissary of Police, sir,” he announced. “Is it to Monsieur Ascott I have the honour to speak?”
“To the same,” replied the young man, turning pale, while drops of cold sweat gathered on his brow.
“You sent for me, sir,” pursued the Commissary.
“I!” exclaimed Ascott, “never such a thing! it wasn’t I!”
M. Moche broke into the dialogue: “It was I, Monsieur le Commissaire, who took the liberty of asking you to come, and also, you will remember, the two gentlemen who are with you.”
“I’m utterly at sea,” muttered Ascott, in a wearied voice; “I don’t understand ...”