"Gourel . . . Dieuzy . . . the first person, do you understand? . . . Mr. Attorney, have you signed the warrant?" "Ten seconds, Lenormand!" "Monsieur le Président, would you be so good as to ring the bell?" Valenglay rang. The messenger appeared in the doorway and waited. Valenglay turned to the chief: "Well, Lenormand, he's waiting for your orders. Whom is he to show in?" "No one." "But the rogue whose arrest you promised us? The six minutes are more than past." "Yes, but the rogue is here!" "Here? I don't understand. No one has entered the room!" "I beg your pardon." "Oh, I say. . . . Look here, Lenormand, you're making fun of us. I tell you again that no one has entered the room." "There were six of us in this room, Monsieur le Président; there are seven now. Consequently, some one has entered the room." Valenglay started: "Eh! But this is madness! . . . What! You mean to say . . ." The two detectives had slipped between the messenger and the door. M. Lenormand walked up to the messenger, clapped his hand on his shoulder and, in a loud voice: "In the name of the law, Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior, I arrest you." Valenglay burst out laughing. "Oh, what a joke! What a joke! That infernal Lenormand! Of all the first-rate notions! Well done, Lenormand! It's long since I enjoyed so good a laugh." M. Lenormand turned to the attorney-general: "Mr. Attorney, you won't forget to fill in Master Daileron's profession on the warrant, will you? Chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior." "Oh, good! . . . Oh, capital! . . . Chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior!" spluttered Valenglay, holding his sides. "Oh, this wonderful Lenormand gets hold of ideas that would never occur to anybody else! The public is clamoring for an arrest. . . . Whoosh, he flings at its head my chief messenger . . . Auguste . . . the model servant! Well, Lenormand, my dear fellow, I knew you had a certain gift of imagination, but I never suspected that it would go so far as this! The impertinence of it!" From the commencement of this scene, Auguste had not stirred a limb and seemed to understand nothing of what was going on around him. His face, the typical face of a good, loyal, faithful serving-man, seemed absolutely bewildered. He looked at the gentlemen turn and turn about, with a visible effort to catch the meaning of their words. M. Lenormand said a few words to Gourel, who went out. Then, going up to Auguste and speaking with great decision, he said: "There's no way out of it. You're caught. The best thing to do, when the game is lost, is to throw down your cards. What were you doing on Tuesday?" "I? Nothing. I was here." "You lie. You were off duty. You went out for the day." "Oh, yes . . . I remember . . . I had a friend to see me from the country. . . . We went for a walk in the Bois."