ided to permit him to make the experiment--the famous experiment
reported for so many years as useless, absurd, almost ridiculous.

"With any one but M. Ginory I should not dare to hope," thought the
police officer, "but he does not sneer at strange discoveries."

He had brought his photographic apparatus, that kodak which he declared
was more dangerous to the criminal than a loaded weapon. He had
developed the negatives which he had taken, and of the three, two had
come out in good condition. The face of the murdered man appeared with a
clearness which, in the proofs, rendered it formidable as in the
reality; and the eyes, those tragic, living eyes, retained their
terrible, accusing expression which the supreme agony had left in them.
The light had struck full on the eyes--and they spoke. Bernardet showed
the proofs to M. Ginory. They examined them with a magnifying glass, but
they showed only the emotion, the agony, the anger of that last moment.
Bernardet hoped to convince M. Ginory that Bourion's experiment was not
a failure.

Eleven o'clock was the hour named for the autopsy. Twenty minutes
before, Bernardet was at the Morgue. He walked restlessly about outside
among the spectators--some were women, young girls, students, and
children who were hovering about the place, hoping that some chance
would permit them to satisfy their morbid curiosity and to enter and
gaze on those slabs whereon lay--swollen, livid, disfigured--the bodies.

Never, perhaps, in his life had the police officer been so strongly
moved with a desire to succeed. He brought to his tragic task all the
ardor of an apostle. It was not the idea of success, the renown, or the
possibility of advancement which urged him on; it was the joy, the glory
of aiding progress, of attaching his name to a new discovery. He worked
for art and the love of art. As he wandered about, his sole thought was
of his desire to test Dr. Bourion's experiment; of the realization of
his dream. "Ah! if M. Ginory will only permit it," he thought.

As he formulated that hope in his mind, he saw M. Ginory descend from
the fiacre; he hurried up to him and saluted him respectfully. Seeing
Bernardet so moved and the first one on the spot, he could not repress a
smile.

"I see you are still enthused."

"I have thought of nothing else all night, Monsieur Ginory."

"Well, but," said Monsieur Ginory in a tone which seemed to Bernardet to
imply hope, "no idea must be rejected, and