“Mlle. Levasseur, Mlle. Levasseur,” he said.  “Is it possible!”

In a corner was a half-obliterated and hardly visible signature.  He made out, “Florence,” the girl’s name, no doubt.  And he repeated: 

“Mlle. Levasseur, Florence Levasseur.  How did her photograph come to be in Inspector Verot’s pocket-book?  And what is the connection between this adventure and the reader of the Hungarian count from whom I took over the house?”

He remembered the incident of the iron curtain.  He remembered the article in the Echo de France, an article aimed against him, of which he had found the rough draft in his own courtyard.  And, above all, he thought of the problem of that broken walking-stick conveyed into his study.

And, while his mind was striving to read these events clearly, while he tried to settle the part played by Mlle. Levasseur, his eyes remained fixed upon the photograph and he gazed absent-mindedly at the pretty lines of the mouth, the charming smile, the graceful curve of the neck, the admirable sweep of the shoulders.

The door opened suddenly and Mlle. Levasseur burst into the room.  Perenna, who had dismissed the butler, was raising to his lips a glass of water which he had just filled for himself.  She sprang forward, seized his arm, snatched the glass from him and flung it on the carpet, where it smashed to pieces.

“Have you drunk any of it?  Have you drunk any of it?” she gasped, in a choking voice.

He replied: 

“No, not yet.  Why?”

She stammered: 

“The water in that bottle ... the water in that bottle—­”

“Well?”

“It’s poisoned!”

He leapt from his chair and, in his turn, gripped her arm fiercely: 

“What’s that?  Poisoned!  Are you certain?  Speak!”

In spite of his usual self-control, he was this time thoroughly alarmed.  Knowing the terrible effects of the poison employed by the miscreants whom he was attacking, recalling the corpse of Inspector Verot, the corpses of Hippolyte Fauville and his son, he knew that, trained though he was to resist comparatively large doses of poison, he could not have escaped the deadly action of this.  It was a poison that did not forgive, that killed, surely and fatally.

The girl was silent.  He raised his voice in command: 

“Answer me!  Are you certain?”

“No ... it was an idea that entered my head—­a presentiment ... certain coincidences—­”

It was as though she regretted her words and now tried to withdraw them.

“Come, come,” he cried, “I want to know the truth:  You’re not certain that the water in this bottle is poisoned?”

“No ... it’s possible—­”

“Still, just now—­”

“I thought so.  But no ... no!”

“It’s easy to make sure,” said Perenna, putting out his hand for the water bottle.

She was quicker than he, seized it and, with one blow, broke it against the table.