e
are very different experiments from the ones one hears of in America."

"They could see the bars in the grating? If that was visible, why could
not the visage of the murderer be found there?"

"Eh! Other experiments have been attempted, even after those of which
Professor Kuhne told our compatriot. Every one, you understand, has
borne only negative results, and M. Brouardel could tell you, better
than I, that in the physiological and oculistic treatises, published
during the last ten years, no allusion has been made to the preservation
of the image on the retina after death. It is an _affair classe_,
Bernardet."

"Ah! Monsieur, yet"--and the police officer hesitated. Shaking his head,
he again repeated: "Yet--yet!"

"You are not convinced?"

"No, Monsieur Ginory, and shall I tell you why? You, yourself, in spite
of the testimony of illustrious savants, still doubt. I pray you to
pardon me, but I see it in your eyes."

"That is still another way to use the retina," said Ginory, laughing.
"You read one's thoughts."

"No, Monsieur, but you are a man of too great intelligence to say to
yourself that there is nothing in this world _classe_, that every matter
can be taken up again. The idea has come to me to try the experiment if
I am permitted. Yes, Monsieur, those eyes, did you see them, the eyes of
the dead man? They seemed to speak; they seemed to see. Their expression
is of lifelike intensity. They see, I tell you, they see! They perceive
something which we cannot see, and which is frightful. They bear--and no
one can convince me to the contrary--they bear on the retina the
reflection of the last being whom the murdered man saw before he died.
They keep it still, they still retain that image. They are going to hold
an autopsy; they will tell us that the throat is cut. Eh! Parbleu! We
know it well. We see it for ourselves. Moniche, the porter, knows it as
well as any doctor. But when one questions those eyes, when one searches
in that black chamber where the image appears as on a plate, when one
demands of those eyes their secret, I am convinced that one will find
it."

"You are obstinate, Bernardet."

"Yes, very obstinate, Monsieur Ginory, and very patient. The pictures
which I took with my kodak will give us the expression, the interior, so
to speak; those which we would take of the retina would reveal to us the
secret of the agony. And, moreover, unless I deceive myself, what
danger attends such an experi