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Updated: June 11, 2025
"Well, all I can say is, it was very stupid of you not to look at the date," said Germaine. M. Gournay-Martin rose to his feet and wailed, in the most heartrending fashion: "My pictures! My wonderful pictures! Such investments! And my cabinets! My Renaissance cabinets! They can't be replaced! They were unique! They were worth a hundred and fifty thousand francs."
There came a loud knocking on the front door, the sound of excited voices on the stairs. The door opened, and in burst M. Gournay-Martin. He took one glance round the devastated room, raised his clenched hands towards the ceiling, and bellowed, "The scoundrels! the dirty scoundrels!" And his voice stuck in his throat.
"Yes ... these rich men, these swells in their luxury when one relieves them of a bank-note, how they do howl! ... You should have seen that fat old Gournay-Martin when I relieved him of his treasures what an agony! You almost heard the death-rattle in his throat. And then the coronet!
Thanks to the Duke, the party was of a liveliness to which the gorgeous dining-room had been very little used since it had been so fortunate as to become the property of M. Gournay-Martin. The millionaire had been looking forward to an evening of luxurious woe, deploring the loss of his treasures giving their prices to his sympathetic friends. The Duke had other views; and they prevailed.
The afternoon wore away, and at half-past seven Guerchard had not returned. M. Formery waited for him, fuming, for ten minutes, then left the house in charge of the inspector, and went off to his engagement. M. Gournay-Martin was entertaining two financiers and their wives, two of their daughters, and two friends of the Duke, the Baron de Vernan and the Comte de Vauvineuse, at dinner that night.
This letter and these signatures are just as likely to be forgeries as not." "I wonder if Guerchard will take that view," said the Duke. "Guerchard? Surely we're not going to be cluttered up with Guerchard. He has Lupin on the brain worse than any one else." "But M. Gournay-Martin particularly asked me to send for Guerchard if I arrived too late to prevent the burglary.
M. Gournay-Martin felt that Guerchard was the man for this piece of work very strongly indeed." "Very good, your Grace," said the inspector. And he rang up the Prefecture of Police. The Duke heard him report the crime and ask that Guerchard should be sent. The official in charge at the moment seemed to make some demur.
"Where is he?" said M. Formery. "Why did you let him go?" "Shall I send for him, sir?" said the inspector. "No, no, it doesn't matter," said M. Formery; and, turning to M. Gournay-Martin and the Duke, he said, "Now we're really going to have trouble with Guerchard. He is going to muddle up everything. This telegram will be the last straw.
He was a little piqued by the millionaire's so readily turning from him to the detective. He went to a writing-table, set some sheets of paper before him, and prepared to make notes on the answers to his questions. The Duke came back into the drawing-room; the inspector was summoned. M. Gournay-Martin sat down on a couch with his hands on his knees and gazed gloomily at M. Formery.
"They're nearly finished," said Sonia. "Nearly isn't quite. Get on with them, can't you!" snapped Germaine. Sonia went back to the writing-table; just the slightest deepening of the faint pink roses in her cheeks marked her sense of Germaine's rudeness. After three years as companion to Germaine Gournay-Martin, she was well inured to millionaire manners; they had almost lost the power to move her.
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