“There was that engagement of Dundas’ last night, which he was just going to keep when we saw him,” said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily.  “I’m afraid there must have been something fishy about that—­I mean, some trap must have been laid to catch him.  And, it seems, he wasn’t supposed to be in Paris—­though I don’t see what that can have to do with the plot, if there is one.  He was stopping in the hotel under another name.  No doubt he had some good reason, though.  There’s nothing sly about Dundas.  If ever there was a plucky chap, he’s one.  Anyhow, apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn’t find, for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather well-known fellow in his line, I believe.  It almost looks as if Dundas had made an enemy of him, for he’s been giving evidence pretty freely to the police—­lost no time about it, anyhow.  Girard says he was following up the scent, tracking down the person he’d been hired by Dundas to hunt for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold.”

“What time was all that?” enquired Lisa sharply.  It was the first question she had asked.

“Between midnight and one o’clock, I think the papers said,” answered Lord Bob.

“Well, of course it’s all nonsense,” exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently.  “French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so.  The idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder!  They ought to know better.  They’ll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging England’s pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won’t they, Eric?”

“I’m afraid there’s no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of the authorities, or of eating humble-pie,” Uncle Eric said.  “The evidence—­entirely circumstantial so far, luckily—­is dead against Ivor.  And as for his being a British subject, there’s nothing in that.  If an Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he’s left to the French law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman.”

“But Ivor hasn’t committed murder!” cried Aunt Lilian, horrified.

“Of course not.  But he’s got to prove that he hasn’t.  And in that he’s worse off than if this thing happened in England.  English law supposes a man innocent until he’s been proved guilty.  French law, on the contrary, presumes that he’s guilty until he’s proved innocent.  In face of the evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn’t have done otherwise than they have done.”

For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian’s husband.  I do hate that cold, stern “sense of justice” on which men pride themselves so much, whether it’s an affair of a friend or an enemy!

“Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an—­an—­don’t you call it an alibi?” asked Lisa.