“I agree with mademoiselle entirely.”

“Ah!” she mused bitterly—­“if only we knew the name of that sale cochon!”

“We do.”

“We—­monsieur?”

“I, at least, know one of the many names doubtless employed by the assassin.”

“And you hesitate to tell me!”

“Why should I?  No, but an effort of memory...”  Lanyard measured a silence, seeming lost in thought, in reality timing the blow and preparing to note its effect.  Then, snapping his fingers as one who says:  I have it!—­“Albert Dupont,” he announced abruptly.

Unquestionably the name meant nothing to the woman.  She curled a lip:  “But that is any name!” Then thoughtfully:  “You heard his companion of the cafe call him that?”

“No, mademoiselle.  But I recognised the animal as Albert Dupont when he boarded the train at Combe-Rendonde that morning and, unnoticed by him, travelled with him all the way to Lyons.”

“You recognised him?”

“I believe it well.”

“When had you known him?”

“First when I fought with him at Montpellier-le-Vieux, later when he sought to do me in on the outskirts of Nant.  He was the fugitive chauffeur of the Chateau de Montalais.”

“But—­name of a sacred name!—­what had that one to do with de Lorgnes?”

“If you will tell me that, there will be no more mystery in this sad affair.”

The woman brooded heavily for a moment.  “But if it had been you he was after, I might understand...”  He caught the sidelong glimmer of her eye upon him, dark with an unuttered question.

But the waltz was at an end, Athenais and Le Brun were threading their way through the intervening tables.

The interruption could not have been better timed; Lanyard was keen to get away.  He had learned all that he could reasonably have hoped to learn from Liane Delorme in one night.  He knew that she and de Lorgnes had been mutually interested in the business that took the latter to Lyons.  He had the testimony of his own perceptions to prove that news of the murder had come as a great shock to her.  On that same testimony he was prepared to swear that, whatever the part, if any, she had played in the robbery, she knew nothing of “Albert Dupont,” at least by that name, and nothing of his activities as chauffeur at the Chateau de Montalais.

Yet one thing more Lanyard knew:  that Liane suspected him of knowing more than he had told her.  But he wasn’t sorry she should think that; it gave him a continuing claim upon her interest.  Henceforth she might be wary of him, but she would never lose touch with him if she could help it.

Now Athenais was pausing beside the table, and saying with a smile as weary as it was charming: 

“Come, Monsieur Paul, if you please, and take me home!  I’ve danced till I’m ready to drop.”

Annoyed by the prospect of being obliged to let Lanyard out of her sight so soon, before she had time to mature her plans with respect to him, Liane Delorme pulled herself together.