e that it was opened with
false keys?"

"No, Monsieur le Prefet."

"Therefore, until we have proofs to the contrary, we are bound to believe
that it was not opened from the outside, and that the criminal was inside
the house."

"But, Monsieur le Prefet, there was no one here but Sergeant Mazeroux
and myself!"

There was a silence, a pause whose meaning admitted of no doubt.
M. Desmalions's next words gave it an even more precise value.

"You did not sleep during the night?"

"Yes, toward the end."

"You did not sleep before, while you were in the passage?"

"No."

"And Sergeant Mazeroux?"

Don Luis remained undecided for a moment; but how could he hope that the
honest and scrupulous Mazeroux had disobeyed the dictates of his
conscience?

He replied:

"Sergeant Mazeroux went to sleep in his chair and did not wake until Mme.
Fauville returned, two hours later."

There was a fresh silence, which evidently meant:

"So, during the two hours when Sergeant Mazeroux was asleep, it was
physically possible for you to open the door and kill the two Fauvilles."

The examination was taking the course which Perenna had foreseen; and
the circle was drawing closer and closer around him. His adversary was
conducting the contest with a logic and vigour which he admired
without reserve.

"By Jove!" he thought. "How difficult it is to defend one's self when one
is innocent. There's my right wing and my left wing driven in. Will my
centre be able to stand the assault?"

M. Desmalions, after a whispered colloquy with the examining magistrate,
resumed his questions in these terms:

"Yesterday evening, when M. Fauville opened his safe in your presence and
the sergeant's, what was in the safe?"

"A heap of papers, on one of the shelves; and, among those papers, the
diary in drab cloth which has since disappeared."

"You did not touch those papers?"

"Neither the papers nor the safe, Monsieur le Prefet. Sergeant Mazeroux
must have told you that he made me stand aside, to insure the regularity
of the inquiry."

"So you never came into the slightest contact with the safe?"

"Not the slightest."

M. Desmalions looked at the examining magistrate and nodded his head. Had
Perenna been able to doubt that a trap was being laid for him, a glance
at Mazeroux would have told him all about it. Mazeroux was ashen gray.

Meanwhile, M. Desmalions continued:

"You have taken part in inquiries, Monsieur, in police inquiries.