Convinced or not, M. Filleul did not look as if he liked the story.
He asked, gruffly:

"What are you doing here?"

"Why--I'm--I'm improving my mind."

"There are schools for that: yours, for instance."

"You forget, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that this is the
twenty-third of April and that we are in the middle of the Easter
holidays."

"Well?"

"Well, I have every right to spend my holidays as I please."

"Your father--"

"My father lives at the other end of the country, in Savoy, and he
himself advised me to take a little trip on the North Coast."

"With a false beard?"

"Oh, no! That's my own idea. At school, we talk a great deal about
mysterious adventures; we read detective stories, in which people
disguise themselves; we imagine any amount of terrible and intricate
cases. So I thought I would amuse myself; and I put on this false
beard. Besides, I enjoyed the advantage of being taken seriously and