night watchman answered. "That very evening a
new servant had joined the staff. I had not even set eyes on him. When I
saw this--stranger----, I took him to be the servant who had been
engaged the day before, and I told them to open the door for him. That
is the real truth."

"And that is all?"

"That is positively all."

"We are only charging you with complicity," the magistrate went on, "for
the man who touched the electric wires burned his hand; that is a strong
point in your favour. And you also say that if the thief were put before
you, you could recognise him?"

"Yes," said the man confidently.

"Good!" said M. Fuselier, and he signed to his clerk to call in another
personage.

The clerk understood, and Gurn was brought in between two municipal
guards, and was followed by the young licentiate in law, Maitre Roger de
Seras, who represented his leader at most of these preliminary
examinations. As Gurn came in, with the light from the window falling
full on his face, M. Fuselier gave a curt order.

"Muller, turn round and look at this man!"

Muller obeyed, and surveyed with some bewilderment, and without the
least comprehension, the bold head and the well-built, muscular frame of
Lord Beltham's murderer. Gurn did not flinch.

"Do you recognise that man?" the magistrate demanded.

Muller ransacked his brains and looked again at Gurn, then shook his
head.

"No, sir."

"Gurn, open your right hand," the magistrate ordered. "Show it," and he
turned again to Muller. "The man before you seems to have been burned in
the palm of the hand, as that scar shows. Can you not remember having
seen that man at the Royal Palace Hotel?"

Muller looked steadily at Gurn.

"On my honour, sir, although it would be to my interest to recognise
him, I am bound to acknowledge that I really and truly don't."

M. Fuselier had a brief conversation aside with Juve, and then, the
detective appearing to agree with him, turned once more to the night
watchman.

"Muller," he said, "the court is pleased with your frankness. You will
be set free provisionally, but you are to hold yourself at the disposal
of the court of enquiry," and he signed to the municipal guards to lead
the gratefully protesting man away.

Meanwhile Gurn's case appeared to him to be becoming much more serious,
and much more interesting. He had the prisoner placed in front of him,
while Juve, who had withdrawn into a dark corner of the room, never took
his eye