“Did she ever live in London?” asked Hugh eagerly, interrupting Ogier’s interrogation.
“Yes—once. She had a furnished house on the Cromwell Road for about six months.”
“How long ago?” asked Henfrey.
“Please allow me to make my inquiries, monsieur!” exclaimed the detective angrily.
“But the question I ask is of greatest importance to me in my own inquiries,” Hugh persisted.
“I am here to discover the identity of Mademoiselle’s assailant,” Ogier asserted. “And I will not brook your interference.”
“Mademoiselle has been shot, and it is for you to discover who fired at her,” snapped the young Englishman. “I consider that I have just as much right to put a question to this man as you have, that is”—he added with sarcasm—“that is, of course, if you don’t suspect him of shooting his mistress.”
“Well, I certainly do not suspect that,” the Frenchman said. “But, to tell you candidly, your story of the affair strikes me as a very improbable one.”
“Ah!” laughed Hugh, “I thought so! You suspect me—eh? Very well. Where is the weapon?”
“Perhaps you have hidden it,” suggested the other meaningly. “We shall, no doubt, find it somewhere.”