, doctor?"

"Undoubtedly," agreed the doctor.

"Then the pistol must have fallen beside him or remained in his hand. Well,
where is it?"

"Ask the woman who was here. How do you know she didn't take it?"

"Nonsense!" put in the chief. "Why should she take it? To throw suspicion
on herself? Besides, I'll show you another reason why it's not suicide. The
man was shot through the right eye, the ball went in straight and clean,
tearing its way to the brain. Well, in the whole history of suicides, there
is not one case where a man has shot himself in the eye. Did you ever hear
of such a case, doctor?"

"Never," answered Joubert.

"A man will shoot himself in the mouth, in the temple, in the heart,
anywhere, but not in the eye. There would be an unconquerable shrinking
from that. So I say it's murder."

The judge shook his head. "And the murderer?"

"Ah, that's another question. We must find the woman. And we must
understand the role of this American."

"No woman ever fired that shot or planned this crime," declared the
commissary, unconsciously echoing Coquenil's opinion.

"There's better reason to argue that the American never did it," retorted
the judge.

"What reason?"

"The woman ran away, didn't she? And the American didn't. If he had killed
this man, do you think _anything_ would have brought him back here for that
cloak and bag?"

"A good point," nodded the chief. "We can't be sure of the murderer--yet,
but we can be reasonably sure it's murder."

Still the judge was unconvinced. "If it's murder, how do you account for
the singed eyebrows? How did the murderer get so near?"

"I answer as you did: 'Ask the woman.' She knows."

"Ah, yes, she knows," reflected the commissary. "And, gentlemen, all our
talk brings us back to this, _we must find that woman_."

At half past one Gibelin appeared to announce the arrest of Kittredge. He
had tried vainly to get from the American some clew to the owner of cloak
and bag, but the young man had refused to speak and, with sullen
indifference, had allowed himself to be locked up in the big room at the
depot.

"I'll see what _I_ can squeeze out of him in the morning," said Hauteville
grimly. There was no judge in the _parquet_ who had his reputation for
breaking down the resistance of obstinate prisoners.

"You've got your work cut out," snapped the detective. "He's a stubborn
devil."

In the midst of these perplexities and technicalities a note was brought in