the side
Coquenil could see that the man's face was as tense and pallid as the sheet
before him.

"As I said, the key to this murder," pursued the magistrate, "is the secret
that Martinez held. Without that nothing can be understood and no justice
can be done. The whole aim of this investigation has been to get the secret
and _we have got it!_ Groener, you have delivered yourself into our hands,
you have written this secret for us in words of terror and we have read
them, we know what Martinez knew when you took his life, we know the story
of the medal that he wore on his breast. Do _you_ know the story?"

"I tell you I know nothing about this man or his medal," flung back the
prisoner.

"No? Then you will be glad to hear the story. It was a medal of solid gold,
awarded Martinez by the city of Paris for conspicuous bravery in saving
lives at the terrible Charity Bazaar fire. You have heard of the Charity
Bazaar fire, Groener?"

"Yes, I--I have heard of it."

"But perhaps you never heard the details or, if you did, you may have
forgotten them. _Have_ you forgotten the details of the Charity Bazaar
fire?"

Charity Bazaar fire! Three times, with increasing emphasis, the magistrate
had spoken those sinister words, yet the dial gave no sign, the red column
throbbed on steadily.

"I am not interested in the subject," answered the accused.

"Ah, but you are, or you ought to be. It was such a shocking affair.
Hundreds burned to death, think of that! Cowardly men trampling women and
children! Our noblest families plunged into grief and bereavement!
Princesses burned to death! Duchesses burned to death! Beautiful women
burned to death! _Rich women burned to death!_ Think of it, Groener, and--"
he signaled the operator, "_and look at it!_"

As he spoke the awful tragedy began in one of those extraordinary moving
pictures that the French make after a catastrophe, giving to the imitation
even greater terrors than were in the genuine happening. Here before them
now leaped redder and fiercer flames than ever crackled through the real
Charity Bazaar; here were women and children perishing in more savage
torture than the actual victims endured; here were horrors piled on
horrors, exaggerated horrors, manufactured horrors, until the spectacle
became unendurable, until one all but heard the screams and breathed the
sickening odor of burning human flesh.

Coquenil had seen this picture in one of the boulevard theaters and,
str