ared Floriani.

"What!"

"If the transom is too small to admit a man, it must have been a child."

"A child!"

"Did you not say that your friend Henriette had a son?"

"Yes; a son named Raoul."

"Then, in all probability, it was Raoul who committed the theft."

"What proof have you of that?"

"What proof! Plenty of it....For instance---"

He stopped, and reflected for a moment, then continued:

"For instance, that gangway or bridge. It is improbable that the child
could have brought it in from outside the house and carried it away
again without being observed. He must have used something close at hand.
In the little room used by Henriette as a kitchen, were there not some
shelves against the wall on which she placed her pans and dishes?"

"Two shelves, to the best of my memory."

"Are you sure that those shelves are really fastened to the wooden
brackets that support them? For, if they are not, we could be justified
in presuming that the child removed them, fastened them together, and
thus formed his bridge. Perhaps, also, since there was a stove, we might
find the bent poker that he used to open the transom."

Without saying a word, the count left the room; and, this time, those
present did not feel the nervous anxiety they had experienced the
first time. They were confident that Floriani was right, and no one was
surprised when the count returned and declared:

"It was the child. Everything proves it."

"You have seen the shelves and the poker?"

"Yes. The shelves have been unnailed, and the poker is there yet."

But the countess exclaimed:

"You had better say it was his mother. Henriette is the guilty party.
She must have compelled her son---"

"No," declared the chevalier, "the mother had nothing to do with it."

"Nonsense! they occupied the same room. The child could not have done it
without the mother's knowledge."

"True, they lived in the same room, but all this happened in the
adjoining room, during the night, while the mother was asleep."

"And the necklace?" said the count. "It would have been found amongst
the child's things."

"Pardon me! He had been out. That morning, on which you found him
reading, he had just come from school, and perhaps the commissary of
police, instead of wasting his time on the innocent mother, would
have been better employed in searching the child's desk amongst his
school-books."

"But how do you explain those two thousand francs that Henriette
recei