Before turning in he had soaked and steamed most of the ache out of bone and muscle in the hottest water his flesh would suffer; and six hours unbroken slumber had done wonders toward lessening the distress his exertions last night had occasioned in the frail new tissues of his wound.  Now, fresh from a cold shower following a second hot bath, and further comforted by a petit dejeuner served in bed, he felt measurably sane again, and sound in wind and limb as well, barring a few deep bruises whose soreness would need several days to heal.

A pleasant languour, like a light opiate, infused his consciousness; yet he was by no means mentally inactive.

The morning papers were scattered over the counterpane.  Lanyard had diligently scanned all the stories that told of the identification of the murdered man of the Lyons rapide as the Comte de Lorgnes; and inasmuch as these were of one voice in praising the Prefecture for that famous feat of detective work, and not one line suggested that it did not deserve undivided credit, Lanyard had nothing to complain of there.

As for the Montalais robbery it was not even mentioned.  The restricted size imposed upon French newspapers by the paper shortage of those days crowded out of their columns everything but news in true sense, and there could be none of that in connection with the Montalais affair until either Andre Duchemin had been arrested or the jewels recovered from the real thief or thieves.  And Lanyard was human enough to be almost as willing to have the first happen as the last, if it were not given to him to be the prime factor in their restoration.

For the time being—­if he must confess the truth—­he was actually rather enjoying himself, rather exhilarated than otherwise by the swiftly shifting scenes and characters of his unfolding investigations and by the brisk sword-play of wits in which he was called upon constantly to engage; both essential ingredients of the wine of life according to the one recipe he knew.

And then a review of recent events seemed to warrant the belief that, all things considered, he had thus far made fair progress toward his goal.

While it was true he did not as yet know what had become of the Montalais jewels, he had gathered together an accumulation of evidence which, however circumstantial and hypothetical, established acceptably to his intelligence a number of interesting inferences, to wit: 

That Dupont had not left the neighbourhood of the Chateau de Montalais, after haunting it for upwards of a month, without definite knowledge that he would gain nothing by staying on, or without an equally definite objective, some motive more inspiring than such simple sensuousness as he might find in assassinating inoffensive folk indiscriminately.

That his attempt upon the life of Liane Delorme within twenty-four hours of the murder of de Lorgnes indicated conviction on his part that the two were coupled in some enterprise inimical to his personal interests.