l in utter dejection.

"No," he replied at last, "I do not suspect anybody! I cannot suspect
anybody! But, sir, as far as I am concerned, I feel certain that
although the murderer was not one of those who occupied the chateau last
night he nevertheless did not come in from outside. It was not possible!
The doors were locked and the shutters were fastened."

"Nevertheless," M. de Presles remarked, "inasmuch as someone has
committed a murder, it must necessarily be the fact, either that that
someone was hidden inside the chateau when Mme. de Langrune herself
locked the front door, or else that he got in during the night. Do you
not see yourself, M. Dollon, that one or other of these two hypotheses
must be correct?"

The steward hesitated.

"It is a mystery, sir," he declared at last. "I swear to you, sir, that
nobody could have got in, and yet it is perfectly clear also that
neither M. Charles nor Mlle. Therese, nor yet either of the two maids,
Marie and Louise, is the murderer."

M. de Presles sat wrapped in thought for a few minutes and then desired
the old steward to fetch the two women servants.

"Come back, yourself," he added, as the old man went away; "I may
require further particulars from you."

Dollon left the room, and Gigou, the clerk, leant forward towards the
magistrate: tact was not the most shining of M. Gigou's qualities.

"When your enquiry is finished, sir--presently--we shall have to pay a
visit to the Mayor of Saint-Jaury. That is in accordance with the usual
procedure. And then he cannot do less than invite us to stay to
dinner!"

IV. "NO! I AM NOT MAD!"

The next day but one after the crime, on the Friday, Louise the cook,
who was still terribly upset by the dreadful death of the good mistress
in whose service she had been for fifteen years, came down to her
kitchen early. It was scarcely daybreak, and the good woman was obliged
to light a lamp to see by. With her mind anywhere but on her work, she
was mechanically getting breakfast for the servants and for the visitors
to the chateau, when a sharp knock on the back door made her jump. She
went to open it, and uttered a little scream as she saw the cocked hats
of gendarmes silhouetted against the wan light of the early morning.

Between the gendarmes were two miserable-looking specimens of humanity.
Louise had only opened the door a few inches when the sergeant, who had
known her for many years, took a step forward and gave her