“Is Mlle. Levasseur in?”

“Yes, sir, she’s in her room.”

“She was away yesterday, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, sir, she received a telegram asking her to go to the country to see a relation who was ill.  She came back last night.”

“I want to speak to her.  Send her to me.  At once.”

“In the study, sir?”

“No, upstairs, in the boudoir next to my bedroom.”

This was a small room on the second floor which had once been a lady’s boudoir, and he preferred it to his study since the attempt at murder of which he had been the object.  He was quieter up there, farther away; and he kept his important papers there.  He always carried the key with him:  a special key with three grooves to it and an inner spring.

Mazeroux had followed him into the courtyard and was keeping close behind him, apparently unobserved by Perenna, who having so far appeared not to notice it.  He now, however, took the sergeant by the arm and led him to the front steps.

“All is going well.  I was afraid that Florence, suspecting something, might not have come back.  But she probably doesn’t know that I saw her yesterday.  She can’t escape us now.”

They went across the hall and up the stairs to the first floor.  Mazeroux rubbed his hands.

“So you’ve come to your senses, Chief?”

“At any rate I’ve made up my mind.  I will not, do you hear, I will not have Mme. Fauville kill herself; and, as there is no other way of preventing that catastrophe, I shall sacrifice Florence.”

“Without regret?”

“Without remorse.”

“Then you forgive me?”

“I thank you.”

And he struck him a clean, powerful blow under the chin.  Mazeroux fell without a moan, in a dead faint on the steps of the second flight.

Halfway up the stairs was a dark recess that served as a lumber room where the servants kept their pails and brooms and the soiled household linen.  Don Luis carried Mazeroux to it, and, seating him comfortably on the floor, with his back to a housemaid’s box, he stuffed his handkerchief into his mouth, gagged him with a towel, and bound his wrists and ankles with two tablecloths.  The other ends of these he fastened to a couple of strong nails.  As Mazeroux was slowly coming to himself, Don Luis said: 

“I think you have all you want.  Tablecloths—­napkins—­something in your mouth in case you’re hungry.  Eat at your ease.  And then take a little nap, and you’ll wake up as fresh as paint.”

He locked him in and glanced at his watch.

“I have an hour before me.  Capital!”

At that moment his intention was to insult Florence, to throw up all her scandalous crimes in her face, and, in this way, to force a written and signed confession from her.  Afterward, when Marie Fauville’s safety was insured, he would see.  Perhaps he would put Florence in his motor and carry her off to some refuge from which, with the girl for a hostage, he would be able to influence the police.  Perhaps—­But he did not seek to anticipate events.  What he wanted was an immediate, violent explanation.