went
out. No sooner was he over the threshold than Daddy Mathieu slammed
the door after him and, turning towards us, with eyes bloodshot, and
frothing at the mouth, he hissed to us, shaking his clenched fist at the
door he had just shut on the man he evidently hated:

"I don't know who you are who tell me 'We shall have to eat red
meat--now'; but if it will interest you to know it--that man is the
murderer!"

With which words Daddy Mathieu immediately left us. Rouletabille
returned towards the fireplace and said:

"Now we'll grill our steak. How do you like the cider?--It's a little
tart, but I like it."

We saw no more of Daddy Mathieu that day, and absolute silence reigned
in the inn when we left it, after placing five francs on the table in
payment for our feast.

Rouletabille at once set off on a three mile walk round Professor
Stangerson's estate. He halted for some ten minutes at the corner of a
narrow road black with soot, near to some charcoal-burners' huts in the
forest of Sainte-Genevieve, which touches on the road from Epinay to
Corbeil, to tell me that the murderer had certainly passed that way,
before entering the grounds and concealing himself in the little clump
of trees.

"You don't think, then, that the keeper knows anything of it?" I asked.

"We shall see that, later," he replied. "For the present I'm not
interested in what the landlord said about the man. The landlord hates
him. I didn't take you to breakfast at the Donjon Inn for the sake of
the Green Man."

Then Rouletabille, with great precaution glided, followed by me, towards
the little building which, standing near the park gate, served for the
home of the concierges, who had been arrested that morning. With the
skill of an acrobat, he got into the lodge by an upper window which had
been left open, and returned ten minutes later. He said only, "Ah!"--a
word which, in his mouth, signified many things.

We were about to take the road leading to the chateau, when a
considerable stir at the park gate attracted our attention. A carriage
had arrived and some people had come from the chateau to meet it.
Rouletabille pointed out to me a gentleman who descended from it.

"That's the Chief of the Surete" he said. "Now we shall see what
Frederic Larsan has up his sleeve, and whether he is so much cleverer
than anybody else."

The carriage of the Chief of the Surete was followed by three other
vehicles containing reporters, who were also desi