right here in their quarters."
Closing the door, he drew a chair toward Rouletabille and motioned him
to sit down. They sat before the little altar loaded with flowers, with
colored paper and winged saints.

"We can talk here without being disturbed," he said. "Yonder there is
such a crowd of people waiting for me. I'm ready to listen."

"Monsieur," said Rouletabille, "I have come to give you the report of my
mission here, and to terminate my connection with it. All that is left
for clearing this obscure affair is to arrest the guilty person, with
which I have nothing to do. That concerns you. I simply inform you that
someone tried to poison the general last night by pouring arsenate of
soda into his sleeping-potion, which I bring you in this phial, arsenate
which was secured most probably by washing it from grapes brought to
General Trebassof by the marshal of the court, and which disappeared
without anyone being able to say how."

"Ah, ah, a family affair, a plot within the family. I told you so,"
murmured Koupriane.

"The affair at least has happened within the family, as you think,
although the assassin came from outside. Contrary to what you may be
able to believe, he does not live in the house."

"Then how does he get there?" demanded Koupriane.

"By the window of the room overlooking the Neva. He has often come that
way. And that is the way he returns also, I am sure. It is there you can
take him if you act with prudence."

"How do you know he often comes that way?"

"You know the height of the window above the little roadway. To reach it
he uses a water-trough, whose iron rings are bent, and also the marks of
a grappling-iron that he carries with him and uses to hoist himself to
the window are distinctly visible on the ironwork of the little balcony
outside. The marks are quite obviously of different dates."

"But that window is closed."

"Someone opens it for him."

"Who, if you please?"

"I have no desire to know."

"Eh, yes. It necessarily is Natacha. I was sure that the Villa des Iles
had its viper. I tell you she doesn't dare leave her nest because she
knows she is watched. Not one of her movements outside escapes us! She
knows it. She has been warned. The last time she ventured outside alone
was to go into the old quarters of Derewnia. What has she to do in such
a rotten quarter? I ask you that. And she turned in her tracks without
seeing anyone, without knocking at a single door, because s