“Monsieur,” he said, and Chayne looked at him with dull eyes like a man dazed.

“There is something which Francois noticed, which he wished me to tell you.  Francois is a good lad.  He wishes you to know that your friend died at once—­there was no sign of a movement.  He lay in the bottom of the crevasse in some snow which was quite smooth.  The guide—­he had kicked a little with his feet in the snow—­but your friend had died at once.”

“Thank you,” said Chayne, without the least emotion in his voice.  But he walked with uneven steps.  At times he staggered like one overdone and very tired.  But once or twice he said, as though he were dimly aware that he had his friend’s reputation to defend: 

“You see he didn’t slip on the ice, Michel.  You were quite wrong.  It was the avalanche.  It was no fault of his.”

“I was wrong,” said Michel, and he took Chayne by the arm lest he should fall; and these two men came long after the others into Chamonix.

CHAPTER IV

MR. JARVICE

The news of Lattery’s death was telegraphed to England on the same evening.  It appeared the next morning under a conspicuous head-line in the daily newspapers, and Mr. Sidney Jarvice read the item in the Pullman car as he traveled from Brighton to his office in London.  He removed his big cigar from his fat red lips, and became absorbed in thought.  The train rushed past Hassocks and Three Bridges and East Croydon.  Mr. Jarvice never once looked at his newspaper again.  The big cigar of which the costliness was proclaimed by the gold band about its middle had long since gone out, and for him the train came quite unexpectedly to a stop at the ticket platform on Battersea Bridge.

Mr. Jarvice was a florid person in his looks and in his dress.  It was in accordance with his floridness that he always retained the gold band about his cigar while he smoked it.  He was a man of middle age, with thick, black hair, a red, broad face, little bright, black eyes, a black mustache and rather prominent teeth.  He was short and stout, and drew attention to his figure by wearing light-colored trousers adorned with a striking check.  From Victoria Station he drove at once to his office in Jermyn Street.  A young and wizened-looking clerk was already at work in the outer room.

“I will see no one this morning, Maunders,” said Mr. Jarvice as he pressed through.

“Very well, sir.  There are a good number of letters,” replied the clerk.

“They must wait,” said Mr. Jarvice, and entering his private room he shut the door.  He did not touch the letters upon his table, but he went straight to his bureau, and unlocking a drawer, took from it a copy of the Code Napoleon.  He studied the document carefully, locked it up again and looked at his watch.  It was getting on toward one o’clock.  He rang the bell for his clerk.

“Maunders,” he said, “I once asked you to make some inquiries about a young man called Walter Hine.”