tell you, M. Giraud, that he is anything but an old fossil. He has solved many cases that have completely baffled the English police.”
“Bah! The English police!” Giraud snapped his fingers disdainfully. “They must be on a level with our examining magistrates. So he has gone to Paris, has he? Well, a good thing. The longer he stays there, the better. But what does he think he will find there?”
I thought I read in the question a tinge of uneasiness. I drew myself up.
“That I am not at liberty to say,” I said quietly.
Giraud subjected me to a piercing stare.
“He has probably enough sense not to tell you,” he remarked rudely. “Good afternoon. I'm busy.”
And with that he turned on his heel and left me without ceremony. Matters seemed at a standstill at the Villa Geneviève. Giraud evidently did not desire my company and, from what I had seen, it seemed fairly certain that Jack Renauld did not either.
I went back to the town, had an enjoyable swim and returned to the hotel. I turned in early, wondering whether the following day would bring forth anything of interest.
I was wholly unprepared for what it did bring forth. I was eating my petit déjeuner in the dining-room when the waiter, who had been talking to someone outside, came back in obvious excitement. He hesitated for a minute, fidgeting with his napkin, and then burst out.
“Monsieur will pardon me, but he is connected, is he not, with the affair at the Villa Geneviève?”
“Yes,” I said eagerly. “Why?”
“Monsieur has not heard the news, though?”
“What news?”
“That there has been another murder there last night!”
“What?”
Leaving my breakfast, I caught up my hat and ran as fast as I could. Another murder—and Poirot away! What fatality. But who had been murdered?
109
