r him. He broke the neck with a stone. Always
stones: observe that detail. They are the only weapon, the only
implement which the creature employs. It is his customary weapon,
his familiar implement. He kills the man with a stone, he kills the
woman with a stone and he opens bottles with a stone!

"A brute, I repeat, a savage; disordered, unhinged, suddenly driven
mad. By what? Why, of course, by that same brandy, which he
swallowed at a draught while the driver and his companion were
having breakfast in the field. He got out of the limousine, in
which he was travelling, in his goat-skin coat and his fur cap,
took the bottle, broke off the neck and drank. There is the whole
story. Having drunk, he went raving mad and hit out at random,
without reason. Then, seized with instinctive fear, dreading the
inevitable punishment, he hid the body of the man. Then, like an
idiot, he took up the wounded woman and ran away. He ran away in
that motor-car which he did not know how to work, but which to him
represented safety, escape from capture.

"But the money, you will ask, the stolen pocket-book? Why, who says
that he was the thief? Who says that it was not some passing tramp,
some labourer, guided by the stench of the corpse?

"Very well, you object, but the brute would have been found, as he
is hiding somewhere near the turn, and as, after all, he must eat
and drink.

"Well, well, I see that you have not yet understood. The simplest
way, I suppose, to have done and to answer your objections is to
make straight for the mark. Then let the gentlemen of the police
and the gendarmerie themselves make straight for the mark. Let them
take firearms. Let them explore the forest within a radius of two
or three hundred yards from the turn, no more. But, instead of
exploring with their heads down and their eyes fixed on the ground,
let them look up into the air, yes, into the air, among the leaves
and branches of the tallest oaks and the most unlikely beeches.
And, believe me, they will see him. For he is there. He is there,
bewildered, piteously at a loss, seeking for the man and woman whom
he has killed, looking for them and waiting for them and not daring
to go away and quite unable to understand.

"I myself am exceedingly sorry that I am kept in town by urgent
private affairs and by so