* * * * * Ten seconds later it was Sergeant Gourel's turn. CHAPTER VII PARBURY-RIBEIRA-ALTENHEIM The girls were playing in the garden, under the supervision of Mlle. Charlotte, Geneviève's new assistant. Mme. Ernemont came out, distributed some cakes among them and then went back to the room which served as a drawing-room and parlor in one, sat down before a writing-desk and began to arrange her papers and account-books. Suddenly, she felt the presence of a stranger in the room. She turned round in alarm: "You!" she cried. "Where have you come from? How did you get in?" "Hush!" said Prince Sernine. "Listen to me and do not let us waste a minute: Geneviève?" "Calling on Mrs. Kesselbach." "When will she be here?" "Not before an hour." "Then I will let the brothers Doudeville come. I have an appointment with them. How is Geneviève?" "Very well." "How often has she seen Pierre Leduc since I went away, ten days ago?" "Three times; and she is to meet him to-day at Mrs. Kesselbach's, to whom she introduced him, as you said she must. Only, I may as well tell you that I don't think much of this Pierre Leduc of yours. Geneviève would do better to find some good fellow in her own class of life. For instance, there's the schoolmaster." "You're mad! Geneviève marry a schoolmaster!" "Oh, if you considered Geneviève's happiness first. . . ." "Shut up, Victoire. You're boring me with your cackle. I have no time to waste on sentiment. I'm playing a game of chess; and I move my men without troubling about what they think. When I have won the game, I will go into the question whether the knight, Pierre Leduc, and the queen, Geneviève, have a heart or not." She interrupted him: "Did you hear? A whistle. . . ." "It's the two Doudevilles. Go and bring them in; and then leave us." As soon as the two brothers were in the room, he questioned them with his usual precision: "I know what the newspapers have said about the disappearance of Lenormand and Gourel. Do you know any more?" "No. The deputy-chief, M. Weber, has taken the case in hand. We have been searching the garden of the House of Retreat for the past week; and nobody is able to explain how they can have disappeared. The whole force is in a flutter. . . . No one has ever seen the like . . . a chief of the detective-service disappearing, without leaving a trace behind him!" "The two maids?" "Gertrude has gone. She is being looked for." "Her sister Suzanne?" "M. Weber and M. Formerie have questioned her. There is nothing against her." "Is that all you have to tell me?" "Oh, no, there are other things, all the things which we did not tell the papers."