Rouletabille said it in a tone that surprised me.

"Is it because--you think there is something to be got out of him?"
I asked.

"Yes."

That was all he would say. He retired to my sitting-room, begging
me to dress quickly.

I knew Monsieur Robert Darzac from having been of great service to
him in a civil action, while I was acting as secretary to Maitre
Barbet Delatour. Monsieur Robert Darzac, who was at that time about
forty years of age, was a professor of physics at the Sorbonne. He
was intimately acquainted with the Stangersons, and, after an
assiduous seven years' courtship of the daughter, had been on the
point of marrying her. In spite of the fact that she has become, as
the phrase goes, "a person of a certain age," she was still
remarkably good-looking. While I was dressing I called out to
Rouletabille, who was impatiently moving about my sitting-room:

"Have you any idea as to the murderer's station in life?"

"Yes," he replied; "I think if he isn't a man in society, he is, at
least, a man belonging to the upper class. But that, again, is only
an impression."

"What has led you to form it?"