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.

"Where can she be?" said the Duke.

"Be?" said the inspector. "I expect she's with the burglars--an
accomplice."