Thus the face of an evil woman of middle-age, debauched beyond hope of redemption, was hideously revealed.  Lanyard knew a qualm at seeing it, and looked hastily away.

Beyond the rank of tables which stood between him and the dancing floor he saw Athenais Reneaux with Le Brun sweeping past in the suave movement of a waltz.  The girl’s face wore a startled expression, her gaze was direct to the woman at Lanyard’s side; then it shifted enquiringly to him.  With a look Lanyard warned her to compose herself, then lifted an eyebrow and glanced meaningly toward the doors.  The least of nods answered him before Le Brun swung Athenais toward the middle of the floor and other couples intervened.

Liane Delorme stirred abruptly.

“The assassin?” she demanded—­“is there any clue?”

“I believe he is known by description, but missing.”

“But you, my friend—­what do you know?”

“As much as anybody, I fancy—­except the author of the murder.”

“Tell me.”

Quietly, briefly, Lanyard told her of seeing the Comte de Lorgnes at dinner in Lyons; of the uneasiness he manifested, and the cumulative feeling of frustration and failure he so plainly betrayed as the last hours of his life wore on; of the Apaches who watched de Lorgnes in the cafe and the fact that one of them had contrived to secure a berth in the same carriage with his victim; of seeing the presumptive murderer slinking away from the train at Laroche; and of the discovery of the body, on the arrival of the rapide at the Gare de Lyon.

Absorbed, with eyes abstracted and intent, and a mouth whose essential selfishness and cruelty was unconsciously stressed by the compression of her lips:  the woman heard him as he might have been a disembodied voice.  Now and again, however, she nodded intently and, when he finished, had a pertinent question ready.

“You say a description of this assassin exists?”

“Have I not communicated it to you?”

“But to the police—?”

“Is it likely?” The woman gave him a blank stare.

“Pardon, mademoiselle:  but is it likely that the late Andre Duchemin would have more to do with the police than he could avoid?”

“You would see a cold-blooded crime go unavenged—?”

“Rather than dedicate the remainder of my days to seeing the world through prison bars?  I should say yes!—­seeing that this assassination does not concern me, and I am guiltless of the crime with which I myself am charged.  But you who were a friend to de Lorgnes know the facts, and nothing hinders your communicating them to the Prefecture....  Though I will confess it would be gracious of you to keep my name out of the affair.”

But Lanyard was not dicing with Chance when he made this suggestion:  he knew very well Liane Delorme would not go to the police.

“That for the Prefecture!” She clicked a finger-nail against her teeth.  “What does it know?  What does it do when it knows anything?”