of the columns. They
made sure that the chapel was properly locked and that none of the
panes were broken. They went round the cloisters and examined every
nook and corner. The search was fruitless.

There was but one discovery: at the place where the man had fallen
under Raymonde's gun, they picked up a chauffeur's cap, in very soft
buff leather; besides that, nothing.

* * * * *

The gendarmerie of Ouville-la-Riviere were informed at six o'clock in
the morning and at once proceeded to the spot, after sending an express
to the authorities at Dieppe with a note describing the circumstances
of the crime, the imminent capture of the chief criminal and "the
discovery of his headgear and of the dagger with which the crime had
been committed."

At ten o'clock, two hired conveyances came down the gentle slope that
led to the house. One of them, an old-fashioned calash, contained the
deputy public prosecutor and the examining magistrate, accompanied by
his clerk. In the other, a humble fly, were seated two reporters,
representing the Journal de Rouen and a great Paris paper.

The old chateau came into view--once the abbey residence of the priors
of Ambrumesy, mutilated under the Revolution, both restored by the
Comte de Gesvres, who had now owned it for some twenty years. It
consists of a main building, surmounted by a pinnacled clock-tower, and
two wings, each of which is surrounded by a flight of steps with a
stone balustrade. Looking across the walls of the park and beyond the
upland supported by the high Norman cliffs, you catch a glimpse of the
blue line of the Channel between the villages of Sainte-Marguerite and
Varengeville.

Here the Comte de Gesvres lived with his daughter Suzanne, a delicate,
fair-haired, pretty creature, and his niece Raymonde de Saint-Veran,
whom he had taken to live with him two years before, when the
simultaneous death of her father and mother left Raymonde an orphan.
Life at the chateau was peaceful and regular. A few neighbors paid an
occasional visit. In the summer, the count took the two girls almost
every day to Dieppe. He was a tall man, with a handsome, serious face
and hair that was turning gray. He was very rich, managed his fortune
himself and looked after his extensive estates with the assistance of
his secretary, Jean Daval.

Immediately upon his arrival, the examining magistrate took down the
first observations of Sergeant Quevillon of the g