The Crime of the Boulevard

by Jules Claretie

  CHAPTER X.

  BETWEEN the examining Magistrate, who questioned, and the man cited toappear before him, who replied, it was a duel; a close game, rapid andtragic, in which each feint might make a mortal wound; in which eachparry and thrust might be decisive. No one in the world has the power ofthe man who, in a word, can change to a prisoner the one who enters thePalais as a passer-by. Behind this inquisitor of the law the prisonstands; the tribunal in its red robes appears; the beams of the scaffoldcast their sinister shadows, and the magistrate's cold chamber alreadyseems to have the lugubrious humidity of the dungeons where thecondemned await their fate.

  Jacques Dantin arrived at the Palais in answer to the Magistrate'scitation, with the apparent alacrity of a man who, regretting a friendtragically put out of the world, wishes to aid in avenging him. He didnot hesitate a second, and Bernardet, who saw him enter the carriage,was struck with the seeming eagerness and haste with which he respondedto the Magistrate's order. When M. Ginory was informed that JacquesDantin had arrived, he allowed an involuntary "Ah!" to escape him. Thisah! seemed to express the satisfaction of an impatient spectator whenthe signal is given which announces that the curtain is about to beraised. For the Examining Magistrate, the drama in which he was about tounravel the mystery was to begin. He kept his eyes fixed upon the door,attributing, correctly, a great importance to the first impression thecomer would make upon him as he entered the room. M. Ginory found thathe was much excited; this was to him a novel thing; but by exercisinghis strong will he succeeded in mastering the emotion, and his face andmanner showed no trace of it.

  In the open door M. Jacques Dantin appeared. The first view, for theMagistrate, was favorable. The man was tall, well built; he bowed withgrace and looked straight before him. But at the same time M. Ginory wasstruck by the strange resemblance of this haughty face to that imageobtained by means of Bernardet's kodak. It seemed to him that this imagehad the same stature, the same form as that man surrounded by the hazyclouds. Upon a second examination it seemed to the Magistrate that theface betrayed a restrained violence, a latent brutality. The eyes werestern, under their bristling brows; the pointed beard, quite thin on thecheeks, showed the heavy jaws, and under the gray mustache the under lipprotruded like those of certain Spanish cavaliers painted by Velasquez.

  "Prognathous," thought M. Ginory, as he noticed this characteristic.With a gesture he motioned M. Dantin to a chair. The man was therebefore the Judge who, with crossed hands, his elbows leaning on hispapers, seemed ready to talk of insignificant things, while theregistrar's bald head was bent over his black table as he rapidly tooknotes. The interview took on a grave tone, but as between two men who,meeting in a salon, speak of the morning or of the premiere of theevening before, and M. Ginory asked M. Dantin for some information inregard to M. Rovere.

  "Did you know him intimately?"

  "Yes, M. le Juge."

  "For how many years?"

  "For more than forty. We were comrades at a school in Bordeaux."

  "You are a Bordelais?"

  "Like Rovere, yes," Dantin replied.

  "Of late, have you seen M. Rovere frequently?"

  "I beg your pardon, M. le Juge, but what do you mean by of late?"

  M. Ginory believed that he had discovered in this question put by a manwho was himself being interrogated--a tactic--a means of finding beforereplying, time for reflection. He was accustomed to these manoeuvresof the accused.

  "When I say of late," he replied, "I mean during the past few weeks ordays which preceded the murder--if that suits you."

  "I saw him often, in fact, even oftener than formerly."

  "Why?"

  Jacques Dantin seemed to hesitate. "I do not know--chance. In Paris onehas intimate friends, one does not see them for some months; andsuddenly one sees them again, and one meets them more frequently."

  "Have you ever had any reason for the interruptions in your relationswith M. Rovere when you ceased to see him, as you say?"

  "None whatever."

  "Was there between you any sort of rivalry, any motive for coldness?"

  "Any motive--any rivalry. What do you mean?"

  "I do not know," said the great man; "I ask you. I am questioning you."

  The registrar's pen ran rapidly and noiselessly over the paper, with thespeed of a bird on the wing.

  These words, "I am questioning you," seemed to make an unexpected,disagreeable impression on Dantin, and he frowned.

  "When did you visit Rovere the last time?"

  "The last time?"

  "Yes. Strive to remember."

  "Two or three days before the murder."

  "It was not two or three days; it was two days exactly before theassassination."

  "You are right, I beg your pardon."

  The Examining Magistrate waited a moment, looking the man full in theeyes. It seemed to him that a slight flush passed over his hitherto paleface.

  "Do you suspect anyone as the murderer of Rovere?" asked M. Ginory aftera moment's reflection.

  "No one," said Dantin. "I have tried to think of some one."

  "Had Rovere any enemies?"

  "I do not know of any."

  The Magistrate swung around by a detour habitual with him to JacquesDantin's last visit to the murdered man, and begged him to be precise,and asked him if anything had especially struck him during that lastinterview with his friend.

  "The idea of suicide having been immediately dropped on the simpleexamination of the wound, no doubt exists as to the cause of death.Rovere was assassinated. By whom? In your last interview was there anytalk between you of any uneasiness which he felt in regard to anything?Was he occupied with any especial affair? Had he--sometimes one haspresentiments--any presentiment of an impending evil, that he wasrunning any danger?"

  "No," Dantin replied. "Rovere made no allusion to me of any peril whichhe feared. I have asked myself who could have any interest in his death.One might have done the deed for plunder."

  "That seems very probable to me," said the Magistrate, "but theexamination made in the apartment proves that not a thing had beentouched. Theft was not the motive."

  "Then?" asked Dantin.

  The sanguine face of the Magistrate, that robust visage, with itsmassive jaws, lighted up with a sort of ironical expression.

  "Then we are here to search for the truth and to find it." In thisresponse, made in a mocking tone, the registrar, who knew every varyingshade of tone in his Chief's voice, raised his head, for in this tone hedetected a menace.

  "Will you tell me all that passed in that last interview?"

  "Nothing whatever which could in any way put justice on the track of thecriminal."

  "But yet can you, or, rather, I should say, ought you not to relate tome all that was said or done? The slightest circumstance might enlightenus."

  "Rovere spoke to me of private affairs," Dantin replied, but quicklyadded: "They were insignificant things."

  "What are insignificant things?"

  "Remembrances--family matters."

  "Family things are not insignificant, above all in a case like this. HadRovere any family? No relative assisted at the obsequies."

  Jacques Dantin seemed troubled, unnerved rather, and this time it wasplainly visible. He replied in a short tone, which was almost brusque:

  "He talked of the past."

  "What past?" asked the Judge, quickly.

  "Of his youth--of moral debts."

  M. Ginory turned around in his chair, leaned back, and said in a caustictone: "Truly, Monsieur, you certainly ought to complete your informationand not make an enigma of your deposition. I do not understand thisuseless reticence, and moral debts, to use your words; they are only togain time. What, then, was M. Rovere's past?"

  Dantin hesitated a moment; not very long. Then he firmly said: "That,Monsieur le Juge, is a secret confided to me by my friend, and as it hasnothing to do with this matter, I ask you to refrain from questioning meabout it."<
br />
  "I beg your pardon," the magistrate replied. "There is not, there cannotbe a secret for an Examining Magistrate. In Rovere's interests, whosememory ought to have public vindication, yes, in his interests, and Iought to say also in your own, it is necessary that you should stateexplicitly what you have just alluded to. You tell me that there is asecret. I wish to know it."

  "It is the confidence of a dead person, Monsieur," Dantin replied, invibrating tones.

  "There are no confidences when justice is in the balance."

  "But it is also the secret of a living person," said Jacques Dantin.

  "Is it of yourself of whom you speak?"

  He gazed keenly at the face, now tortured and contracted.

  Dantin replied: "No, I do not speak of myself, but of another."

  "That other--who is he?"

  "It is impossible to tell you."

  "Impossible?"

  "Absolutely impossible!"

  "I will repeat to you my first question--'Why?'"

  "Because I have sworn on my honor to reveal it to no one."

  "Ah, ah!" said Ginory, mockingly; "it was a vow? That is perfect!"

  "Yes, Monsieur le Juge; it was a vow."

  "A vow made to whom?"

  "To Rovere."

  "Who is no longer here to release you from it. I understand."

  "And," asked Dantin, with a vehemence which made the registrar's thinhand tremble as it flew over the paper, "what do you understand?"

  "Pardon," said M. Ginory; "you are not here to put questions, but toanswer those which are asked you. It is certain that a vow which bindsthe holder of a secret is a means of defence, but the accused have, bymaking common use of it, rendered it useless."

  The Magistrate noticed the almost menacing frown with which Dantinlooked at him at the words, "the accused."

  "The accused?" said the man, turning in his chair. "Am I one of theaccused?" His voice was strident, almost strangled.

  "I do not know that," said M. Ginory, in a very calm tone; "I say thatyou wish to keep your secret, and it is a claim which I do not admit."

  "I repeat, Monsieur le Juge, that the secret is not mine."

  "It is no longer a secret which can remain sacred here. A murder hasbeen committed, a murderer is to be found, and everything you know youought to reveal to justice."

  "But if I give you my word of honor that it has not the slightestbearing on the matter--with the death of Rovere?"

  "I shall tell my registrar to write your very words in reply--he hasdone it--I shall continue to question you, precisely because you speakto me of a secret which has been confided to you and which you refuse todisclose to me. Because you do refuse?"

  "Absolutely!"

  "In spite of what I have said to you? It is a warning; you know itwell!"

  "In spite of your warning!"

  "Take care!" M. Ginory softly said. His angry face had lost its wontedamiability. The registrar quickly raised his head. He felt that adecisive moment had come. The Examining Magistrate looked directly intoDantin's eyes and slowly said: "You remember that you were seen by theportress at the moment when Rovere, standing with you in front of hisopen safe, showed you some valuables?"

  Dantin waited a moment before he replied, as if measuring these words,and searching to find out just what M. Ginory was driving at. Thissilence, short and momentous, was dramatic. The Magistrate knew itwell--that moment of agony when the question seems like a cord, like alasso suddenly thrown, and tightening around one's neck. There wasalways, in his examination, a tragic moment.

  "I remember very well that I saw a person whom I did not know enter theroom where I was with M. Rovere," Jacques Dantin replied at last.

  "A person whom you did not know? You knew her very well, since you hadmore than once asked her if M. Rovere was at home. That person is Mme.Moniche, who has made her deposition."

  "And what did she say in her deposition?"

  The Magistrate took a paper from the table in front of him and read:"When I entered, M. Rovere was standing before his safe, and I noticedthat the individual of whom I spoke (the individual is you) cast uponthe coupons a look which made me cold. I thought to myself: 'This manlooks as if he is meditating some bad deed.'"

  "That is to say," brusquely said Dantin, who had listened with frowningbrows and with an angry expression, "that Mme. Moniche accuses me ofhaving murdered M. Rovere!"

  "You are in too much haste. Mme. Moniche has not said that precisely.She was only surprised--surprised and frightened--at your expression asyou looked at the deeds, bills and coupons."

  "Those coupons," asked Dantin rather anxiously, "have they, then, beenstolen?"

  "Ah, that we know nothing about," and the Magistrate smiled.

  "One has found in Rovere's safe in the neighborhood of 460,000 francs incoupons, city of Paris bonds, shares in mining societies, rent rolls;but nothing to prove that there was before the assassination more thanthat sum."

  "Had it been forced open?"

  "No; but anyone familiar with the dead man, a friend who knew the secretof the combination of the safe, the four letters forming the word, couldhave opened it without trouble."

  Among these words Dantin heard one which struck him full in theface--"friend." M. Ginory had pronounced it in an ordinary tone, butDantin had seized and read in it a menace. For a moment the man who wasbeing questioned felt a peculiar sensation. It seemed to him one daywhen he had been almost drowned during a boating party that same agonyhad seized him; it seemed that he had fallen into some abyss, some icypool, which was paralyzing him. Opposite to him the Examining Magistrateexperienced a contrary feeling. The caster of a hook and line feels asimilar sensation; but it was intensified a hundred times in theMagistrate, a fisher of truth, throwing the line into a human sea, thewater polluted, red with blood and mixed with mud.

  A friend! A friend could have abused the dead man's secret and openedthat safe! And that friend--what name did he bear? Whom did M. Ginorywish to designate? Dantin, in spite of his _sang froid_, experienced aviolent temptation to ask the man what he meant by those words. But thestrange sensation which this interview caused him increased. It seemedto him that he had been there a long time--a very long time since hehad crossed that threshold--and that this little room, separated fromthe world like a monk's cell, had walls thick enough to prevent any onefrom hearing anything outside. He felt as if hypnotized by that man, whoat first had met him with a pleasant air, and who now bent upon himthose hard eyes. Something doubtful, like vague danger, surrounded him,menaced him, and he mechanically followed the gesture which M. Ginorymade as he touched the ivory button of an electric bell, as if on thisgesture depended some event of his life. A guard entered. M. Ginory saidto him in a short tone: "Have the notes been brought?"

  "M. Bernardet has just brought them to me, Monsieur le Juge."

  "Give them to me!" He then added: "Is Monsieur Bernardet here?"

  "Yes, Monsieur le Juge."

  "Very well."

  Jacques Dantin remembered the little man with whom he had talked in thejourney from the house of death to the tomb, where he had heard some onecall "Bernardet." He did not know at the time, but the name had struckhim. Why did his presence seem of so much importance to this ExaminingMagistrate? And he looked, in his turn, at M. Ginory, who, a littlenear-sighted, was bending his head, with its sandy hair, its baldforehead, on which the veins stood out like cords, over his notes,which had been brought to him. Interesting notes--important, withoutdoubt--for, visibly satisfied, M. Ginory allowed a word or two to escapehim: "Good! Yes--Yes--Fine! Ah! Ah!--Very good!" Then suddenly Dantinsaw Ginory raise his head and look at him--as the saying is--in thewhite of the eyes. He waited a moment before speaking, and suddenly putthis question, thrust at Dantin like a knife-blow:

  "Are you a gambler, as I find?"

  The question made Jacques Dantin fairly bound from his chair. A gambler!Why did this man ask him if he was a gambler? What had his habits, hiscustoms, his vices even, to do with thi
s cause for which he had beencited, to do with Rovere's murder?

  "You are a gambler," continued the Examining Magistrate, casting fromtime to time a keen glance toward his notes. "One of the inspectors ofgambling dens saw you lose at the Cercle des Publicistes 25,000 francsin one night."

  "It is possible; the only important point is that I paid them!" Theresponse was short, crisp, showing a little irritation and stupefaction.

  "Assuredly," said the Judge. "But you have no fortune. You have recentlyborrowed a considerable sum from the usurers in order to pay for somelosses at the Bourse."

  Dantin became very pale, his lips quivered, and his hands trembled.These signs of emotion did not escape the eyes of M. Ginory nor theregistrar's.

  "Is it from your little notes that you have learned all that?" hedemanded.

  "Certainly," M. Ginory replied. "We have been seeking for some hours foraccurate information concerning you; started a sort of diary or roughdraught of your biography. You are fond of pleasure. You are seen, inspite of your age--I pray you to pardon me, there is no malice in theremark: I am older than you--everywhere where is found the famousTout-Paris which amuses itself. The easy life is the most difficult forthose who have no fortune. And, according to these notes--I refer tothem again--of fortune you have none."

  "That is to say," interrupted Dantin, brusquely, "it would be verypossible that, in order to obtain money for my needs, in order to stealthe funds in his iron safe, I would assassinate my friend?"

  M. Ginory did not allow himself to display any emotion at the insolenttone of these words, which had burst forth, almost like a cry. He lookedDantin full in the face, and with his hands crossed upon his notes, hesaid:

  "Monsieur, in a matter of criminal investigation a Magistrate, eager forthe truth ought to admit that anything is possible, even probable, butin this case I ought to recognize the fact that you have not helped mein my task. A witness finds you tete-a-tete with the victim andsurprises your trouble at the moment when you are examining Rovere'spapers. I ask what it was that happened between you, you reply that thatis your secret, and for explanation you give me your word of honor thatit had nothing whatever to do with the murder. You would yourself thinkthat I was very foolish if I insisted any longer. True, there was notrace of any violence in the apartment, whatever subtraction may havebeen made from the safe. It appears that you are in a position to knowthe combination; it appears, also, that you are certainly in need ofmoney; as clearly known as it is possible to learn in a hurried inquirysuch as has been made, while you have been here. I question you. I letyou know what you ought to know, and you fly into a passion. And notewell! it is you yourself, in your anger and your violence, who speaksfirst the word of which I have not pronounced a syllable. It is you whohave jumped straight to a logical conclusion of the suppositions whichare still defective, without doubt, but are not the less suppositions;yes, it is you who say that with a little logic one can certainly accuseyou of the murder of the one whom you called your friend."

  Each word brought to Dantin's face an angry or a frightened expression,and the more slowly M. Ginory spoke, the more measured his words,emphasizing his verbs, with a sort of professional habit, as a surgeontouches a wound with a steel instrument, the questioned man, put througha sharp cross-examination, experienced a frightful anger, a stronginternal struggle, which made the blood rush to his ears and ferociouslightnings dart through his eyes.

  "It is easy, moreover," continued M. Ginory, in a paternal tone, "foryou to reduce to nothingness all these suppositions, and the smallestexpression in regard to the role which you played in your last interviewwith Rovere would put everything right."

  "Ah! must we go back to that?"

  "Certainly, we must go back to that! The whole question lies there! Youcome to an Examining Magistrate and tell him that there is a secret; youspeak of a third person, of recollections of youth, of moral debts--andyou are astonished that the Judge strives to wrest the truth from you?"

  "I have told it."

  "The whole truth?"

  "It has nothing to do with Rovere's murder, and it would injure some onewho knows nothing about it. I have told you so. I repeat it."

  "Yes," said M. Ginory, "you hold to your enigma! Oh, well, I, theMagistrate, demand that you reveal the truth to me. I command you totell it."

  The registrar's pen ran over the paper and trembled as if it scented astorm. The psychological moment approached. The registrar knew itwell--that moment--and the word which the Magistrate would soonpronounce would be decisive.

  A sort of struggle began in Dantin's mind--one saw his face growhaggard, his eyes change their expression. He looked at the papers uponwhich M. Ginory laid his fat and hairy hands; those police notes _whichgossiped_, as peasants say, in speaking of papers or writing which theycannot read and which denounce them. He asked himself what more would bedisclosed by those notes of the police agents of the scandals of theclub, of the neighbors, of the porters. He passed his hands over hisforehead as if to wipe off the perspiration or to ease away a headache.

  "Come, now, it is not very difficult, and I have the right to know,"said M. Ginory. After a moment Jacques Dantin said in a strong voice: "Iswear to you, Monsieur, that nothing Rovere said to me when I saw himthe last time could assist justice in any whatsoever, and I beg of younot to question me further about it."

  "Will you answer?"

  "I cannot, Monsieur."

  "The more you hesitate the more reason you give me to think that thecommunication would be grave."

  "Very grave, but it has nothing to do with your investigation."

  "It's not for you to outline the duties of my limits or my rights. Oncemore, I order you to reply."

  "I cannot."

  "You will not."

  "I cannot," brusquely said the man run to earth, with accent ofviolence.

  The duel was finished.

  M. Ginory began to laugh, or, rather, there was a nervous contraction ofhis mouth, and his sanguine face wore a scoffing look, while amechanical movement of his massive jaws made him resemble a bulldogabout to bite.

  "Then," said he, "the situation is a very simple one and you force me tocome to the end of my task. You understand?"

  "Perfectly," said Jacques Dantin, with the impulsive anger of a man whostumbles over an article which he has left there himself.

  "You still refuse to reply?"

  "I refuse. I came here as a witness. I have nothing to reproach myselfwith, especially as I have nothing to fear. You must do whatever youchoose to do."

  "I can," said the Magistrate, "change a citation for appearance to acitation for retention. I will ask you once more"----

  "It is useless," interrupted Dantin. "An assassin. I! What folly!Rovere's murderer! It seems as if I were dreaming! It is absurd, absurd,absurd!"

  "Prove to me that it is absurd in truth. Do you not wish to reply?"

  "I have told you all I know."

  "But you have said nothing of what I have demanded of you."

  "It is not my secret."

  "Yes; there is your system. It is frequent, it is common. It is that ofall the accused."

  "Am I already accused?" asked Dantin, ironically.

  M. Ginory was silent a moment, then, slowly taking from the drawer ofhis desk some paper upon which Dantin could discern no writing thistime, but some figures, engraved in black--he knew not what theywere--the Magistrate held them between his fingers so as to show them.He swung them to and fro, and the papers rustled like dry leaves. Heseemed to attach great value to these papers, which the registrar lookedat from a corner of his eye, guessing that they were the photographicproofs which had been taken.

  "I beg of you to examine these proofs," said the Magistrate to Dantin.He held them out to him, and Dantin spread them on the table (therewere four of them), then he put on his eyeglasses in order to seebetter. "What is that?" he asked.

  "Look carefully," replied the Magistrate. Dantin bent over the proofs,examined them one by one, divined, r
ather than saw, in the picture whichwas a little hazy, the portrait of a man; and upon close examinationbegan to see in the spectre a vague resemblance.

  "Do you not see that this picture bears a resemblance to you?"

  This time Dantin seemed the prey of some nightmare, and his eyessearched M. Ginory's face with a sort of agony. The expression struckGinory. One would have said that a ghost had suddenly appeared toDantin.

  "You say that it resembles me?"

  "Yes. Look carefully! At first the portrait is vague; on closerexamination it comes out from the halo which surrounds it, and theperson who appears there bears your air, your features, yourcharacteristics"----

  "It is possible," said Dantin. "It seems to resemble me; it seems as ifI were looking at myself in a pocket mirror. But what does thatsignify?"

  "That signifies--Oh! I am going to astonish you. That signifies"--M.Ginory turned toward his registrar: "You saw the other evening, Favarel,the experiment in which Dr. Oudin showed us the heart and lungsperforming their functions in the thorax of a living man, made visibleby the Roentgen Rays. Well! This is not any more miraculous. Thesephotographs (he turned now toward Dantin) were taken of the retina ofthe dead man's eye. They are the reflection, the reproduction of theimage implanted there, the picture of the last living being contemplatedin the agony; the last visual sensation which the unfortunate manexperienced. The retina has given to us--as a witness--the image of theliving person seen by the dead man for the last time!"

  A deep silence fell upon the three men in that little room, where one ofthem alone, lost his foothold at this strange revelation. For theMagistrate it was a decisive moment; when all had been said, when theman having been questioned closely, jumps at the foregone conclusion. Asfor the registrar, however blase he may have become by these dailyexperiences, it was the decisive moment! the moment when, the line drawnfrom the water, the fish is landed, writhing on the hook!

  Jacques Dantin, with an instinctive movement, had rejected, pushed backon the table those photographs which burned his fingers like the cardsin which some fortune teller has deciphered the signs of death.

  "Well?" asked M. Ginory.

  "Well!" repeated Dantin in a strangled tone, either not comprehending orcomprehending too much, struggling as if under the oppression of anightmare.

  "How do you explain how your face, your shadow if you prefer, was foundreflected in Rovere's eyes, and that in his agony, this was probablywhat he saw; yes, saw bending over him?"

  Dantin cast a frightened glance around the room, and asked himself if hewas not shut up in a maniac's cell; if the question was real; if thevoice he heard was not the voice of a dream!

  "How can I explain? but I cannot explain, I do not understand, I do notknow--it is madness, it is frightful, it is foolish!"

  "But yet," insisted M. Ginory, "this folly, as you call it, must havesome explanation."

  "What do you wish to have me say? I do not understand. I repeat, I donot understand."

  "What if you do not, you cannot deny your presence in the house at themoment of Rovere's death"----

  "Why cannot I deny it?" Dantin interrupted.

  "Because the vision is there, hidden, hazy, in the retina; because thisphotograph, in which you recognized yourself, denounces, points out,your presence at the moment of the last agony."

  "I was not there! I swear that I was not there!" Dantin ferventlydeclared.

  "Then, explain," said the Magistrate.

  Dantin remained silent a moment, as if frightened. Then he stammered: "Iam dreaming!--I dreaming!" and M. Ginory replied in a calm tone:

  "Notice that I attribute no exaggerated importance to these proofs. Itis not on them alone that I base the accusation. But they constitute astrange witness, very disquieting in its mute eloquence. They add to thedoubt which your desire for silence has awakened. You tell me that youwere not near Rovere when he died. These proofs, irrefutable as a fact,seem to prove at once the contrary. Then, the day Rovere wasassassinated where were you?"

  "I do not know. At home, without doubt. I will have to think it over. Atwhat hour was Rovere killed?"

  M. Ginory made a gesture of ignorance and in a tone of raillery said:"That! There are others who know it better than I." And Dantin,irritated, looked at him.

  "Yes," went on the Magistrate, with mocking politeness, "the surgeonswho can tell the hour in which he was killed." He turned over hispapers. "The assassination was about an hour before midday. In Paris, inbroad daylight, at that hour, a murder was committed!"

  "At that hour," said Jacques Dantin, "I was just leaving home."

  "To go where?"

  "For a walk. I had a headache. I was going to walk in the Champs-Elyseesto cure it."

  "And did you, in your walk, meet any one whom you knew?"

  "No one."

  "Did you go into some shop?"

  "I did not."

  "In short, you have no _alibi_?"

  The word made Dantin again tremble. He felt the meshes of the netclosing around him.

  "An _alibi_! Ah that! Decidedly. Monsieur, you accuse me ofassassinating my friend," he violently said.

  "I do not accuse; I ask a question." And M. Ginory in a dry tone whichgradually became cutting and menacing said: "I question you, but I warnyou that the interview has taken a bad turn. You do not answer; youpretend to keep secret I know not what information which concerns us.You are not yet exactly accused. But--but--but--you are going to be"----

  The Magistrate waited a moment as if to give the man time to reflect,and he held his pen suspended, after dipping it in the ink, as anauctioneer holds his ivory hammer before bringing it down to close asale. "I am going to drop the pen," it seemed to say. Dantin, veryangry, remained silent. His look of bravado seemed to say: "Do youdare? If you dare, do it!"

  "You refuse to speak?" asked Ginory for the last time.

  "I refuse."

  "You have willed it! Do you persist in giving no explanation; do youentrench yourself behind I know not what scruple or duty to honor; doyou keep to your systematic silence? For the last time, do you stillpersist in this?"

  "I have nothing--nothing--nothing to tell you!" Dantin cried in a sortof rage.

  "Oh, well! Jacques Dantin," and the Magistrate's voice was grave andsuddenly solemn. "You are from this moment arrested." The pen, upliftedtill this instant, fell upon the paper. It was an order for arrest. Theregistrar looked at the man. Jacques Dantin did not move. His expressionseemed vague, the fixed expression of a person who dreams with wide-openeyes. M. Ginory touched one of the electric buttons above his table andpointed Dantin out to the guards, whose shakos suddenly darkened thedoorway. "Take away the prisoner," he said shortly and mechanically,and, overcome, without revolt, Jacques Dantin allowed himself to be ledthrough the corridors of the Palais, saying nothing, comprehendingnothing, stumbling occasionally, like an intoxicated man or asomnambulist.