ce the innuendoes uttered at the chateau by Mr. Monk and
his party.

No: there had been malice in that, Duchemin was satisfied, if not some
darker purpose which perplexed the most patient scrutiny.

Now malice without incentive is unthinkable. But Duchemin searched his
memory in vain for anything he could have said or done to make anybody
desire to discredit him in the sight of the ladies of the Chateau de
Montalais. Still the attempt so to do had been unmistakable: the Lone
Wolf had been lugged into the conversation literally by his legendary
ears.

Surely, one would think, that nocturnal prowler of pre-War Paris had
been so long dead and buried even the most ghoulish gossip should
respect his poor remains and not disinter them merely to demonstrate
that the Past can never wholly die!

Had he, then, some enemy of old hidden under one of those sleek
surfaces?

An excellent visual memory reviewed successively the physical
characteristics of Messieurs Monk, Phinuit and de Lorgnes, and their
chauffeur Jules; with the upshot that Duchemin could have sworn that he
had never before known any of these.

And Madame la Comtesse? In respect of that one memory again drew a
blank, but remained unsatisfied. When one thought of her some remote,
faint chord of reminiscence thrilled and hummed, but never
recognisably. Not that there was anything remarkable in this: if one
cared to look for them, the world was thronged with women such as she,
handsome, spirited, well-groomed animals endued with some little
distinction of manner, native or acquired, with every appeal to the
senses and more or less, generally spurious, to the intelligence. They
made the theatre possible in France, leavened the social life of the
half-world, fluttered conspicuously and often disastrously through
circles of more sedate society, had their portraits in every Salon,
their photographs in every issue of the fashionable journals. Some made
history, others fiction: either would be insufferably dull lacking
their influence. But they were as much alike as so many peas, out of
their several shells, and the man who saw one inevitably remembered
all.

Setting aside then the theory of positive personal animus, what other
reason could there be for the effort to fasten upon Duchemin suspicion
of identity with the late Lone Wolf?

A sinister consideration, if any, and one, Duchemin suspected, not
unconnected with the much-talked-about jewels of Madame de Montala