In his surprise he sprang up so abruptly that he pushed back his chair, and overturned it. His excitement was so great that his hands were shaking as he carefully spread out upon the desk one of the ordnance maps he had taken from the case.
"It's the map of the centre district all right: the map which shows Cahors, and Brives, and Saint-Jaury and--Beaulieu! And the missing piece--it is the missing piece that would give that precise district!"
Juve stared at the map with hypnotised gaze; for a piece had been cut out of it, cut out with a penknife neatly and carefully, and that piece must have shown the exact district where the château stood which had been occupied by the Marquise de Langrune.
"Oh, if I could only prove it: prove that the piece missing from this map, this map belonging to Gurn, is really and truly the piece I found near Verrières Station just after the murder of the Marquise de Langrune--what a triumph that would be! What a damning proof! What astounding consequences this discovery of mine might have!"
Juve made a careful note of the number of the map, quickly and nervously, folded it up again, and prepared to leave the flat.
He had made but a step or two towards the door when a sharp ring at the bell made him jump.
"The deuce!" he exclaimed softly; "who can be coming to ring Gurn up when everybody in Paris knows he has been arrested?" and he felt mechanically in his pocket to make sure that his revolver was there. Then he smiled. "What a fool I am! Of course it is only Mme. Doulenques, wondering why I am staying here so long."
He strode to the door, flung it wide open, and then recoiled in astonishment.
"You?" he exclaimed, surveying the caller from top to toe. "You? Charles Rambert! Or, I should say, Jérôme Fandor! Now what the deuce does this mean?"
Jérôme Fandor entered the room without a word. Juve closed the door behind him. The boy was very pale and manifestly much upset.
"Something terrible has happened," the boy answered. "I have just heard awful news: my poor father is dead!"
"What?" Juve exclaimed sharply. "M. Etienne Rambert dead?"
Jérôme Fandor put a newspaper into the detective's hand. "Read that," he said, and pointed to an article on the front page with a huge head-line: "_Wreck of the 'Lancaster': 150 Lives Lost._" There were tears in his eyes, and he had such obvious difficulty in restraining his grief, that Juve saw that to read the article would be the speediest way to find out what had occurred.