“Really, Sir Henry! You but now assured me that I would remember this
night's robbery.”
The drawl got back into his voice.
“Ah, yes,” he said, “quite so. You will remember it.”
The man was clearly, it seemed to me, so engrossed with the mystery
that it was idle to interrogate him. And he was walking with a devil's
stride.
Still the pointed query of the affair pressed me, and I made another
effort.
“Why did these assailants take Madame Barras on with them?”
Marquis regarded me, I thought, with wonder.
“The devil, man!” he said. “They couldn't leave her behind.”
“The danger would be too great to them?”
“No,” he said, “the danger would be too great to her.”
At this moment an object before us in the road diverted our attention.
It was the cut-under and the horse. They were standing by the roadside
where it makes a great turn to enter the village from the south. There
is a wide border to the road at this point, clear of underbrush, where
the forest edges it, and there are here, at the whim of some one, or by
chance, two great flat stones, one lying upon the other, but not fitting
by a hand's thickness by reason of the uneven surfaces.
What had now happened was evident. The assailants of the cut-under
had abandoned it here before entering the village. They could not, of
course, go on with this incriminating vehicle.
The sight of the cut-under here had on Marquis the usual effect of any
important evidential sign. He at once ceased to hurry. He pulled up;
looked over the cut-under and the horse, and began to saunter about.
This careless manner was difficult for me at such a time. But for
his assurance that Madame Barras, was uninjured it would have been
impossible. I had a blind confidence in the man although his expressions
were so absurdly in conflict.
I started to go on toward the village, but as he did not follow I turned
back. Marquis was sitting on the flat stones with a cigarette in his
fingers:
“Good heavens, man,” I cried, “you're not stopping to smoke a
cigarette?”
“Not this cigarette, at any rate,” he replied. “Madame Barras has
already smoked it.... I can, perhaps, find you the burnt match.”
He got the electric-flash out of his pocket, and stooped over.
Immediately he made an exclamation of surprise.