When he had finished telephoning, the inspector began to search the two rooms for traces of the burglars. He found nothing, not even a finger-mark.
When he had gone through the two rooms he said, "The next thing to do is to find the house-keeper. She may be sleeping still—she may not even have heard the noise of the burglars."
"I find all this extremely interesting," said the Duke; and he followed the inspector out of the room.
The inspector called up the two policemen, who had been freeing the concierge and going through the rooms on the ground-floor. They did not then examine any more of the rooms on the first floor to discover if they also had been plundered. They went straight up to the top of the house, the servants' quarters.
The inspector called, "Victoire! Victoire!" two or three times; but there was no answer.
They opened the door of room after room and looked in, the inspector taking the rooms on the right, the policemen the rooms on the left.
"Here we are," said one of the policemen." This room's been recently occupied." They looked in, and saw that the bed was unmade. Plainly Victoire had slept in it.
