The Man in Grey | Page 9

on any valuables, but even so there were
some small pieces of silver lying about which they might have snatched
up, even if they were in a vast hurry to get away; whilst in the case of
the murder, though the victim's silver watch was stolen and his pockets
ransacked, the man was obviously poor and not worth knocking down."
"And is the identity of the victim known to the police?" here asked the
Man in Grey in his dull, colourless voice.
"Indeed it is," replied the préfet; "the man was well known throughout
the neighbourhood. He was valet to Madame la Marquise de Phélan."
M. le Procureur looked up suddenly from his engrossing occupation.
"Ah!" he said, "I did not know that. Lefèvre did not tell me that he had
established the identity of the victim."
He sighed and once more gazed meditatively upon his finger-nails.
"Poor Maxence! I have often seen him at Plélan. There never was a
more inoffensive creature. What motive could the brute have for such a
villainous murder?"

The préfet shrugged his shoulders.
"Some private quarrel, I imagine," he said.
"A love affair?" queried the Man in Grey.
"Oh no, Monsieur. Maxence was the wrong side of fifty."
"A smart man?"
"Anything but smart -- a curious, shock-headed, slouchy-looking
person with hair as red as a fox's."
Just for the space of one second the colourless eyes of the Man in Grey
lit up with a quick and intense light; it seemed for the moment as if an
exclamation difficult to suppress would escape his thin, bloodless lips,
and his whole insignificant figure appeared to be quivering with a
sudden, uncontrollable eagerness. But this departure from his usual
quietude was so momentary that M. le préfet failed to notice it, whilst
M. le Procureur remained as usual uninterested and detached.
"Poor Maxence!" resumed M. Vimars after awhile. "He had, as far as is
known, not a single enemy in the world. He was devoted to Madame la
Marquise and enjoyed her complete confidence; he was not possessed
of any savings, nor was he of a quarrelsome disposition. He can't have
had more than a few francs about his person when he was so foully
waylaid and murdered. Indeed, it is because the crime is ostensibly so
wanton that the police at once dismissed the idea that those abominable
Chouans had anything to do with it!"
"Is the road where the body was found very lonely of nights?" asked
the Man in Grey.
"It is a lonely road," replied the préfet, "and never considered very safe,
as it is a favourite haunt of the Chouans -- but it is the direct road
between Alençon and Mayenne, through Lonrai and Plélan."
"Is it known what business took the confidential valet of Madame la

Marquise de Plélan on that lonely road in the middle of the night?"
"It has not been definitely established," here broke in M. le Procureur
curtly, "that the murder was committed in the middle of the night."
"I thought ----"
"The body was found in the early morning," continued M. de
Saint-Tropèze with an air of cold condescension; "the man had been
dead some hours -- the leech has not pronounced how many. Maxence
had no doubt many friends or relations in Alençon: it is presumed that
he spent the afternoon in the city and was on his way back to Plélan in
the evening when he was waylaid and murdered."
"That presumption is wrong," said the Man in Grey quietly.
"Wrong?" retorted M. le Procureur frigidly.
"What do you mean?"
"I was walking home from Plélan towards Alençon in the small hours
of the morning. There was no dead body lying in the road then."
"The body lay by the roadside, half in the ditch," said M. le Procureur
dryly, "you may have missed seeing it."
"Possibly," rejoined the Man in Grey equally dryly, "but unlikely."
"Were you looking out for it then?" riposted the Procureur. But no
sooner were the words out of his mouth than he realised his mistake.
The Man in Grey made no reply; he literally appeared to withdraw
himself into an invisible shell, to efface himself yet further within a
colourless atmosphere, out of which it was obviously unwise to try to
drag him.
M. le Procureur pressed his thin lips together, impatient with himself at
an unnecessary loss of dignity. As usual M. le préfet was ready to
throw himself into the breach.

"I am sure," he said with his usual volubility, "that we are wasting
Monsieur le Procureur's valuable time now. I can assure you, Monsieur
-- er -- Fernand, that our chief commissary of police can give you all
the details of the crime -- if, indeed, they interest you. Shall we go now?
-- that is,"