proud of your invention. Perhaps I should never have discovered it, if
in this very room, this very night, you had not been imprudent enough to
leave those imprints on my collar!... No one had left the room,
therefore the guilty person was in the room--of necessity he was:
_therefore, it followed, that someone had the hands of Dollon!..._ But
how could this someone have the hands of Dollon?... Of course,
naturally, the idea of these gloves occurred to me!..."

Fandor turned to the chief of the detective force.

"Monsieur Havard, Madame de Vibray committed suicide because she lost
her fortune through Barbey-Nanteuil mismanagement--she might even have
been poisoned by them! But that does not matter! Her death might
compromise the Bank: they carried her dead body to Jacques Dollon's
studio, and they tried to poison this painter, in order to put the law
off their track. You know Dollon was saved! He was a dangerous witness.
They killed him in his cell, some warder being accessory to the
fact--killed him before his innocence could be established! Then they
took his hands, that they might commit murders with them!... Dollon is
dead, as I have held all along. It is Nanteuil who has committed the
crimes ascribed to the most unfortunate Dollon. These crimes have
profited the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank--as I pointed out just now!"

* * * * *

Whilst Nanteuil stood speechless, whilst Barbey, whom they had lifted to
a sofa, was gasping out his last breath, whilst Juve was giving little
nods of approval to what his dear lad was saying, Fandor was treating
Monsieur Havard to a further version of the affair.

"When I telephoned to you I was morally certain of the approaching
arrest. Not a soul quitted the room after the hands of Dollon had left
imprints on my collar and on my neck. Therefore someone had the hands of
Dollon. The finger imprints of all the personages present were known to
me--therefore someone had a method by which he changed his own
finger-prints into those of Dollon.... How was it done? It must be a
removable method or means ... why, of course, it could only be by a pair
of gloves that the trick was done ... of course it must be by means of
_a pair of gloves made with the skin of Jacques Dollon's hands_!... I
noticed that Nanteuil kept his hands obstinately behind his back. I
guessed that it was he who had played the part of Dollon to-night, so I
managed to prevent him removing those Doll