“So you have already made your mind up on that point!” said Hanaud sharply.

The Commissaire shrugged his shoulders.

“Examine the villa and then judge for yourself whether any other explanation is conceivable,” he said; and turning, he waved his hand towards the house.  Then he cried, “Ah!” and drew himself into an attitude of attention.  A tall, thin man of about forty-five years, dressed in a frock coat and a high silk hat, had just come round an angle of the drive and was moving slowly towards them.  He wore the soft, curling brown beard of one who has never used a razor on his chin, and had a narrow face with eyes of a very light grey, and a round bulging forehead.

“This is the Juge d’Instruction?” asked Hanaud.

“Yes; M. Fleuriot,” replied Louis Besnard in a whisper.

M. Fleuriot was occupied with his own thoughts, and it was not until Besnard stepped forward noisily on the gravel that he became aware of the group in the garden.

“This is M. Hanaud, of the Surete in Paris,” said Louis Besnard.

M. Fleuriot bowed with cordiality.

“You are very welcome, M. Hanaud.  You will find that nothing at the villa has been disturbed.  The moment the message arrived over the telephone that you were willing to assist us I gave instructions that all should be left as we found it.  I trust that you, with your experience, will see a way where our eyes find none.”

Hanaud bowed in reply.

“I shall do my best, M. Fleuriot.  I can say no more,” he said.

“But who are these gentlemen?” asked Fleuriot, waking, it seemed, now for the first time to the presence of Harry Wethermill and Mr. Ricardo.

“They are both friends of mine,” replied Hanaud.  “If you do not object I think their assistance may be useful.  Mr. Wethermill, for instance, was acquainted with Celia Harland.”

“Ah!” cried the judge; and his face took on suddenly a keen and eager look.  “You can tell me about her perhaps?”

“All that I know I will tell readily,” said Harry Wethermill.

Into the light eyes of M. Fleuriot there came a cold, bright gleam.  He took a step forward.  His face seemed to narrow to a greater sharpness.  In a moment, to Mr. Ricardo’s thought, he ceased to be the judge; he dropped from his high office; he dwindled into a fanatic.

“She is a Jewess, this Celia Harland?” he cried.

“No, M. Fleuriot, she is not,” replied Wethermill.  “I do not speak in disparagement of that race, for I count many friends amongst its members.  But Celia Harland is not one of them.”

“Ah!” said Fleuriot; and there was something of disappointment, something, too, of incredulity, in his voice.  “Well, you will come and report to me when you have made your investigation.”  And he passed on without another question or remark.

The group of men watched him go, and it was not until he was out of earshot that Besnard turned with a deprecating gesture to Hanaud.