very nervous, and if I was the
first to come to bid her good morning I always heard her unfasten that
bolt when I knocked."

M. de Presles made no reply. He made one more tour of the room, minutely
considering the situation of each single article.

"M. Dollon, will you kindly take me where I can have the use of a table
and inkstand, and anything else I may need to get on with my preliminary
enquiry?"

"Your clerk is waiting for you in the library, sir," the steward
replied. "He has everything ready for you there."

"Very well. If it is convenient to you we will join him now."

* * * * *

M. de Presles followed Dollon down to the library on the ground floor,
where his enterprising clerk had already established himself. The
magistrate took his seat behind a large table and called to the police
sergeant.

"I shall ask you to be present during my enquiry, sergeant. The first
investigations will devolve upon you, so it will be well for you to hear
all the details the witnesses can furnish me with. I suppose you have
taken no steps as yet?"

"Beg pardon, sir: I have sent my men out in all directions, with orders
to interrogate all tramps and to detain any who do not give a
satisfactory account of their time last night."

"Good! By the way, while I think of it, have you sent off the telegram I
gave you when I arrived--the telegram to the police head-quarters in
Paris, asking for a detective to be sent down?"

"I took it to the telegraph office myself, sir."

His mind made easy on this score, the young magistrate turned to Dollon.

"Will you please take a seat, sir?" he said and, disregarding the
disapproving looks of his clerk, who had a particular predilection for
all the long circumlocutions and red tape of the law, he pretermitted
the usual questions as to name and age and occupation of the witnesses,
and began his enquiry by questioning the old steward. "What is the exact
plan of the chateau?" was his first enquiry.

"You know it now, sir, almost as well as I do. The passage from the
front door leads to the main staircase, which we went up just now, to
the first floor where the bedroom of the Marquise is situated. The first
floor contains a series of rooms separated by a corridor. On the right
is Mlle. Therese's room, and then come guest-chambers which are not
occupied now. On the left is the bedroom of the Marquise, followed by
her dressing-room on the same side, and after t