e, grandmamma!"

There was no reply.

But at the window of an adjoining room appeared the figure of the
steward, Dollon, making a gesture, as if asking for silence.

Therese, in advance of her guests, had proceeded but a few yards when
Mme. de Langrune's old servant rushed down the stone flight of steps in
front of the chateau, towards M. Rambert.

Dollon seemed distraught. Usually so respectful and so deferential in
manner, he now seized M. Rambert by the arm, and imperiously waving
Therese and Charles away, drew him aside.

"It is awful, sir," he exclaimed: "horrible: a fearful thing has
happened. We have just found Mme. la Marquise dead--murdered--in her
room!"

III. THE HUNT FOR THE MAN

M. de Presles, the examining magistrate in charge of the Court at
Brives, had just arrived at the chateau of Beaulieu, having been
notified of the tragedy by the police sergeant stationed at Saint-Jaury.
The magistrate was a young, fashionable, and rather aristocratic man of
the world, whose grievance it was to be tied down to work that was
mechanical rather than intellectual. He was essentially modern in his
ideas, and his chief ambition was to get away as quickly as possible
from the small provincial town to which he had been exiled by the
changes and chances of promotion; he was sick of Brives, and now it
occurred to him that a crime like this present one would give him an
opportunity of displaying his gifts of intuition and deduction, prove
his quality, and so might enable him to get another appointment. After
Dollon had received him at the chateau, the magistrate had first of all
made enquiry as to who was in the house at the time. From the
information given him he was satisfied that it was unnecessary to
subject either Therese or Charles Rambert to immediate examination, both
of the young people being much too upset to be able to reply to serious
questions, and both having been taken away to the house of the Baronne
de Vibray. It was, also, clear that M. Rambert senior, who had only
arrived after the crime, could not furnish any interesting information.

"Tell me exactly how you discovered the crime, M. Dollon," he said as,
pale and trembling, the steward accompanied him along the corridor to
the scene of the murder.

"I went this morning as usual, sir," the steward replied, "to say good
morning to Mme. de Langrune and receive her orders for the day. I
knocked at her door as I always did, but got no answer.