nce does it make
which hole the man fired through so long as he shot straight and got away?"

"What difference? Just this difference, that, by firing through the
left-hand hole, he has given us precious evidence, against him."

"How?"

"Come back into the other room and I'll show you." And, when they had
returned to Number Seven, he continued: "Take the pistol. Pretend you are
the murderer. You've been waiting your moment, holding your breath on one
side of the wall while the auger grinds through from the other. The first
hole is finished. You see the point of the auger as it comes through the
second, now the wood breaks and a length of turning steel shoves toward
you. You grip your pistol and look through the left-hand hole, you see the
woman holding back the curtains, you see Martinez draw out the auger from
the right-hand hole and lay it down. Now he leans forward, pressing his
face to the completed eyeholes, you see the whites of his eyes, not three
inches away. Quick! Pistol up! Ready to fire! No, no, through the
_left-hand_ hole where _he_ fired."

"_Sacre matin!_" muttered Tignol, "it's awkward aiming through this
left-hand hole."

"Ah!" said the detective. "_Why_ is it awkward?"

"Because it's too near the sideboard. I can't get my eye there to sight
along the pistol barrel."

"You mean your right eye?"

"Of course."

"Could you get your left eye there?"

"Yes, but if I aimed with my left eye I'd have to fire with my left hand
and I couldn't hit a cow that way."

Coquenil looked at Tignol steadily. "_You could if you were a left-handed
man_."

"You mean to say--" The other stared.

"I mean to say that _this_ man, at a critical moment, fired through that
awkward hole near the sideboard when he might just as well have fired
through the other hole away from the sideboard. Which shows that it was an
easy and natural thing for him to do, consequently----"

"Consequently," exulted the old man, "we've got to look for a left-handed
murderer, is that it?"

"What do _you_ think?" smiled the detective.

Papa Tignol paused, and then, bobbing his head in comical seriousness: "I
think, if I were this man, I'd sooner have the devil after me than Paul
Coquenil."

CHAPTER IX

COQUENIL MARKS HIS MAN

It was nearly four o'clock when Coquenil left the Ansonia and started up
the Champs Elysees, breathing deep of the early morning air. The night was
still dark, although day was breaking in the east.