otice of the danger.

The breathless peasants reached the quincunx of beeches that formed the
edge of the forest. And one of them at once cried:

"There you are!"

"What?"

"Upset!"

The car, a limousine, had turned turtle and lay smashed, twisted and
shapeless. Beside it, the woman's dead body. But the most horrible,
sordid, stupefying thing was the woman's head, crushed, flattened,
invisible under a block of stone, a huge block of stone lodged there by
some unknown and prodigious agency. As for the man in the goat-skin
coat he was nowhere to be found.

* * * * *

He was not found on the scene of the accident. He was not found either
in the neighbourhood. Moreover, some workmen coming down the Cote de
Morgues declared that they had not seen anybody.

The man, therefore, had taken refuge in the woods.

The gendarmes, who were at once sent for, made a minute search, assisted
by the peasants, but discovered nothing. In the same way, the
examining-magistrates, after a close inquiry lasting for several days,
found no clue capable of throwing the least light upon this inscrutable
tragedy. On the contrary, the investigations only led to further
mysteries and further improbabilities.

Thus it was ascertained that the block of stone came from where there
had been a landslip, at least forty yards away. And the murderer, in a
few minutes, had carried it all that distance and flung it on his
victim's head.

On the other hand, the murderer, who was most certainly not hiding in
the forest--for, if so, he must inevitably have been discovered, the
forest being of limited extent--had the audacity, eight days after the
crime, to come back to the turn on the hill and leave his goat-skin coat
there. Why? With what object? There was nothing in the pockets of the
coat, except a corkscrew and a napkin. What did it all mean?

Inquiries were made of the builder of the motor-car, who recognized the
limousine as one which he had sold, three years ago, to a Russian. The
said Russian, declared the manufacturer, had sold it again at once. To
whom? No one knew. The car bore no number.

Then again, it was impossible to identify the dead woman's body. Her
clothes and underclothing were not marked in any way. And the face was
quite unknown.

Meanwhile, detectives were going along the national road in the
direction opposite to that taken by the actors in this mysterious
tragedy. But who was to prove that