He went straight to his study and at once examined the arch leading to the telephone box.  This arch, which was about six feet wide and very low, had no door, but merely a velvet hanging, which was nearly always drawn up, leaving the arch uncovered.  Under the hanging, among the moldings of the cornice, was a button that had only to be pressed to bring down the iron curtain against which he had thrown himself two hours before.

He worked the catch two or three times over, and his experiments proved to him in the most explicit fashion that the mechanism was in perfect order and unable to act without outside intervention.  Was he then to conclude that the girl had wanted to kill him?  But what could be her motive?

He was on the point of ringing and sending for her, so as to receive the explanation which he was resolved to demand from her.  However, the minutes passed and he did not ring.  He saw her through the window as she walked slowly across the yard, her body swinging gracefully from her hips.  A ray of sunshine lit up the gold of her hair.

All the rest of the morning he lay on a sofa, smoking cigars.  He was ill at ease, dissatisfied with himself and with the course of events, not one of which brought him the least glimmer of truth; in fact, all of them seemed to deepen the darkness in which he was battling.  Eager to act, the moment he did so he encountered fresh obstacles that paralyzed his powers of action and left him in utter ignorance of the nature of his adversaries.

But, at twelve o’clock, just as he had rung for lunch, his butler entered the study with a tray in his hand, and exclaimed, with an agitation which showed that the household was aware of Don Luis’s ambiguous position: 

“Sir, it’s the Prefect of Police!”

“Eh?” said Perenna.  “Where is he?”

“Downstairs, sir.  I did not know what to do, at first ... and I thought of telling Mlle. Levasseur.  But—­”

“Are you sure?”

“Here is his card, sir.”

Perenna took the card from the tray and read M. Desmalions’s name.  He went to the window, opened it and, with the aid of the overhead mirror, looked into the Place du Palais-Bourbon.  Half a dozen men were walking about.  He recognized them.  They were his usual watchers, those whom he had got rid of on the evening before and who had come to resume their observation.

“No others?” he said to himself.  “Come, we have nothing to fear, and the Prefect of Police has none but the best intentions toward me.  It was what I expected; and I think that I was well advised to save his life.”

M. Desmalions entered without a word.  All that he did was to bend his head slightly, with a movement that might be taken for a bow.  As for Weber, who was with him, he did not even give himself the trouble to disguise his feelings toward such a man as Perenna.

Don Luis took no direct notice of this attitude, but, in revenge, ostentatiously omitted to push forward more than one chair.  M. Desmalions, however, preferred to walk about the room, with his hands behind his back, as if to continue his reflections before speaking.