nterrogatories?"

"Certainly, you are right. We may elicit more about this maid. Let us
call in the porter now. He is said to have had relations with her.
Something more may be got out of him."

The more did not amount to much. Groote, the porter, came in, cringing
and wretched, in the abject state of a man who has lately been drugged
and is now slowly recovering. Although sharply questioned, he had
nothing to add to his first story.

"Speak out," said the Judge, harshly. "Tell us everything plainly and
promptly, or I shall send you straight to gaol. The order is already
made out;" and as he spoke, he waved a flimsy bit of paper before him.

"I know nothing," the porter protested, piteously.

"That is false. We are fully informed and no fools. We are certain that
no such catastrophe could have occurred without your knowledge or
connivance."

"Indeed, gentlemen, indeed--"

"You were drinking with this maid at the buffet at Laroche. You had more
drink with her, or from her hands, afterwards in the car."

"No, gentlemen, that is not so. I could not--she was not in the car."

"We know better. You cannot deceive us. You were her accomplice, and the
accomplice of her mistress, also, I have no doubt."

"I declare solemnly that I am quite innocent of all this. I hardly
remember what happened at Laroche or after. I do not deny the drink at
the buffet. It was very nasty, I thought, and could not tell why, nor
why I could not hold my head up when I got back to the car."

"You went off to sleep at once? Is that what you pretend?"

"It must have been so. Yes. Then I know nothing more, not till I was
aroused."

And beyond this, a tale to which he stuck with undeviating persistence,
they could elicit nothing.

"He is either too clever for us or an absolute idiot and fool," said the
Judge, wearily, at last, when Groote had gone out. "We had better commit
him to Mazas and hold him there in solitary confinement under our hands.
After a day or two of that he may be less difficult."

"It is quite clear he was drugged, that the maid put opium or laudanum
into his drink at Laroche."

"And enough of it apparently, for he says he went off to sleep directly
he returned to the car," the Judge remarked.

"He says so. But he must have had a second dose, or why was the vial
found on the ground by his seat?" asked the Chief, thoughtfully, as much
of himself as of the others.

"I cannot believe in a second dose. How was it admin