M. Lenormand seemed greatly excited. He walked up and down, he opened the doors of the rooms. And, suddenly, he set off at a run, with an agility of which no one would have thought him capable. He rattled down the six storeys, followed at a distance by the manager and the examining-magistrate. At the bottom, he found Gourel in front of the main door. "Has no one gone out?" "No, chief." "What about the other door, in the Rue Orvieto?" "I have posted Dieuzy there." "With firm orders?" "Yes, chief." The huge hall of the hotel was crowded with anxious visitors, all commenting on the more or less accurate versions that had reached them of the crime. All the servants had been summoned by telephone and were arriving, one by one. M. Lenormand questioned them without delay. None of them was able to supply the least information. But a fifth-floor chambermaid appeared. Ten minutes earlier, or thereabouts, she had passed two gentlemen who were coming down the servants' staircase between the fifth and the fourth floors. "They came down very fast. The one in front was holding the other by the hand. I was surprised to see those two gentlemen on the servants' staircase." "Would you know them again?" "Not the first one. He had his head turned the other way. He was a thin, fair man. He wore a soft black hat . . . and black clothes." "And the other?" "Oh, the other was an Englishman, with a big, clean-shaven face and a check suit. He had no hat on." The description obviously referred to Chapman. The woman added: "He looked . . . he looked quite funny . . . as if he was mad." Gourel's word was not enough for M. Lenormand. One after the other, he questioned the under-porters standing at the two doors: "Did you know Mr. Chapman?" "Yes, sir, he always spoke to us." "And you have not seen him go out?" "No, sir. He has not been out this morning." M. Lenormand turned to the commissary of police: "How many men have you with you, Monsieur le Commissaire?" "Four." "That's not sufficient. Telephone to your secretary to send you all the men available. And please be so good as yourself to organize the closest watch at every outlet. The state of siege, Monsieur le Commissaire. . . ." "But I say," protested the manager, "my customers?" "I don't care a hang, sir, for your customers! My duty comes before everything; and my duty is at all costs to arrest. . . ." "So you believe . . ." the examining-magistrate ventured to interpolate. "I don't _believe_, monsieur . . . I am sure that the perpetrator of both the murders is still in the hotel." "But then Chapman . . ."