“Still alive!” gasped Henfrey. “That’s excellent! I—I feared that she was dead!”
“No. She still breathes,” the doctor replied. “But, tell me exactly what has occurred. First, however, we will get them to remove her upstairs. I will telephone to my colleague Duponteil, and we will endeavour to extract the bullet.”
“But will she recover, doctor?” asked Hugh eagerly in French. “What do you think?”
The little man became serious and shook his head gravely.
“Ah! m’sieur, that I cannot say,” was his reply. “She is in a very grave state—very! And the brain may be affected.”
Hugh held his breath. Surely Yvonne Ferad was not to die with the secret upon her lips!
At the doctor’s orders the servants were about to remove their mistress to her room when two well-dressed men of official aspect entered. They were officers of the Bureau of Police.
“Stop!” cried the elder, who was the one in authority, a tall, lantern-jawed man with a dark brown beard and yellow teeth. “Do not touch that lady! What has happened here?”
Hugh came forward, and in his best French explained the circumstances of the tragedy—how Mademoiselle had been shot in his presence by an unknown hand.
“The assassin, whoever he was, stood out yonder—upon the veranda—but I never saw him,” he added. “It was all over in a second—and he has escaped!”