d at with a gun loaded with small shot; and wounds made in that way
are very puzzling. I trust no vital part has been injured; but I cannot
answer for any thing. I have often in my practice seen very small
injuries, wounds caused by a small-sized shot, which, nevertheless,
proved fatal, and showed their true character only twelve or fifteen
hours after the accident had happened."

He would have gone on in this way, if the magistrate had not suddenly
interrupted him, saying,--

"Doctor, you know I am here because a crime has been committed. The
criminal has to be found out, and to be punished: hence I request your
assistance, from this moment, in the name of the Law."

III.

By this single phrase M. Galpin made himself master of the situation,
and reduced the doctor to an inferior position, in which, it is true, he
had the mayor and the commonwealth attorney to bear him company. There
was nothing now to be thought of, but the crime that had been committed,
and the judge who was to punish the author. But he tried in vain to
assume all the rigidity of his official air and that contempt for human
feelings which has made justice so hateful to thousands. His whole being
was impregnated with intense satisfaction, up to his beard, cut and
trimmed like the box-hedges of an old-fashioned garden.

"Well, doctor," he asked, "first of all, have you any objection to my
questioning your patient?"

"It would certainly be better for him to be left alone," growled Dr.
Seignebos. "I have made him suffer enough this last hour; and I shall
directly begin again cutting out the small pieces of lead which have
honeycombed his flesh. But if it must be"--

"It must be."

"Well, then, make haste; for the fever will set in presently."

M. Daubigeon could not conceal his annoyance. He called out,--

"Galpin, Galpin!"

The other man paid no attention. Having taken a note-book and a pencil
from his pocket, he drew up close to the sick man's bed, and asked him
in an undertone,--

"Are you strong enough, count, to answer my questions?"

"Oh, perfectly!"

"Then, pray tell me all you know of the sad events of to-night."

With the aid of his wife and Dr. Seignebos, the count raised himself on
his pillows, and began thus,--

"Unfortunately, the little I know will be of no use in aiding justice to
discover the guilty man. It may have been eleven o'clock, for I am not
even quite sure of the hour, when I had gone to bed, and just blown