three o'clock in the afternoon
interminable and long-winded gossip ! Minute circumstances in connexion with M. le Marquis 's private life and Mme. la Marquise 's affairs were freely discussed in the cafés , the clubs and restaurants , and as no one knew the facts of the case , surmises soon became very wild . On the third day of M. le Marquis 's disappearance Papa Mosenstein returned to Paris from Vichy , where he had just completed his annual cure . He arrived at Rue de Grammont at three o'clock in the afternoon , demanded to see Mme. la Marquise at once , and then remained closeted with her in her apartment for over an hour . After which he sent for the inspector of police of the section , with the result that that very same evening M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour was found locked up in an humble apartment on the top floor of a house in the Rue Daunou , not ten minutes ' walk from his own house . When the police -- acting on information supplied to them by M. Mauruss Mosenstein -- forced their way into that apartment , they were horrified to find M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour there , tied hand and foot with cords to a chair , his likely calls for help smothered by a woollen shawl wound loosely round the lower part of his face . He was half dead with inanition , and was conveyed speechless and helpless to his home in the Rue de Grammont , there , presumably , to be nursed back to health by Madame his wife .