“But what do you want me to say?” asked the prévenu, “What is all this pother about a great-coat?” (_Tant de fracas pour un paletot?_) Maitland was rather proud of this sentence. “It is the part of Justice to ask questions, not to answer them,” said the Juge d’Instruction. “Levity will avail you nothing. Tell me, Buchanan, why did you ask for the coat at the Hôtel Alsace et Lorraine?” “In answer to that advertisement in the Times.” “That is false; you yourself inserted the advertisement. But, on your own system, bad as it is, what did you want with the coat?” “It belonged to a man who had done me an ill-turn.” “His name?” “I do not know his name; that is just what I wanted to find out I might have found his tailor’s name on the coat, and then have discovered for whom the coat was made.” “You are aware that the proprietor of the hotel did not insert the forged advertisement?” “So he says.” “You doubt his word? You insult France in one of her citizens!” Maitland apologized. “Then whom do you suspect of inserting the advertisement, as you deny having done it yourself, for some purpose which does not appear?” “I believe the owner of the coat put in the advertisement.” “That is absurd. What had he to gain by it?” “To remove me from London, where he is probably conspiring against me at this moment.” “Buchanan, you trifle with Justice!” “I have told you that my name is not Buchanan.” “Then why did you forge that name in the hotel book?” “I wrote it in the hurry and excitement of the moment; it was incorrect.” “Why did you lie?” (_Pourquoi avez vous menti?_) Maitland made an irritable movement “You threaten Justice. Your attitude is deplorable. You are consigned _au secret_, and will have an opportunity of revising your situation, and replying more fully to the inquiries of Justice.” So ended Maitland’s first and, happily, sole interview with a Juge d’Instruction. Lord Walter Brixton, his old St Gatien’s pupil, returned from the country on the very day of Maitland’s examination. An interview (during which Lord Walter laughed unfeelingly) with his old coach was not refused to the _attaché_, and, in a few hours, after some formalities had been complied with, Maitland was a free man. His _pièces justificatives_, his letters, cards, and return ticket to Charing Cross, were returned to him intact. But Maitland determined to sacrifice the privileges of the last-named document. “I am going straight to Constantinople and the Greek Islands,” he wrote to Barton. “Do you know, I don’t like Paris. My attempt at an investigation has not been a success. I have endured considerable discomfort, and I fear my case will get into the _Figaro_, and there will be dozens of ‘social leaders’ and ‘descriptive headers’ about me in all the penny papers.” Then Maitland gave his banker’s address at Constantinople, relinquished the quest of Margaret, and for a while, as the Sagas say, “is out of the story.” CHAPTER XI.--The Night of Adventures.