black, and a
piece of thin strong cord was knotted so tightly about her neck and had
sunk so deeply into her flesh that at first I did not see it. For Mme.
Dauvray was stout."

"Then what did you do?" asked Hanaud.

"I went to the telephone which was in the hall and rang up the police.
Then I crept upstairs very cautiously, trying the doors. I came upon no
one until I reached the room under the roof where the light was
burning; there I found Helene Vauquier, the maid, snoring in bed in a
terrible fashion."

The four men turned a bend in the road. A few paces away a knot of
people stood before a gate which a sergent-de-ville guarded.

"But here we are at the villa," said Hanaud.

They all looked up and, from a window at the corner upon the first
floor a man looked out and drew in his head.

"That is M. Besnard, the Commissaire of our police in Aix," said
Perrichet.

"And the window from which he looked," said Hanaud, "must be the window
of that room in which you saw the bright light at half-past nine on
your first round?"

"Yes, m'sieur," said Perrichet; "that is the window."

They stopped at the gate. Perrichet spoke to the sergent-de-ville, who
at once held the gate open. The party passed into the garden of the
villa.

CHAPTER IV

AT THE VILLA

The drive curved between trees and high bushes towards the back of the
house, and as the party advanced along it a small, trim, soldier-like
man, with a pointed beard, came to meet them. It was the man who had
looked out from the window, Louis Besnard, the Commissaire of Police.

"You are coming, then, to help us, M. Hanaud!" he cried, extending his
hands. "You will find no jealousy here; no spirit amongst us of
anything but good will; no desire except one to carry out your
suggestions. All we wish is that the murderers should be discovered.
Mon Dieu, what a crime! And so young a girl to be involved in it! But
what will you?"

"So you have already made your mind up on that point!" said Hanaud
sharply.

The Commissaire shrugged his shoulders.

"Examine the villa and then judge for yourself whether any other
explanation is conceivable," he said; and turning, he waved his hand
towards the house. Then he cried, "Ah!" and drew himself into an
attitude of attention. A tall, thin man of about forty-five years,
dressed in a frock coat and a high silk hat, had just come round an
angle of the drive and was moving slowly towards them. He wore the
soft, curl