ood-merchant at
Brechy. That was a disastrous imprudence. And here is the real danger.
As to the rest, that amounts to nothing. There is the water in which M.
de Boiscoran washed his hands when he came home, and in which they
have found traces of burnt paper. We have only to modify the facts very
slightly to explain that. We have only to state that M. de Boiscoran is
a passionate smoker: that is well known. He had taken with him a goodly
supply of cigarettes when he set out for Brechy; but he had taken
no matches. And that is a fact. We can furnish proof, we can produce
witnesses, we had no matches; for we had forgotten our match-box, the
day before, at M. de Chandore's,--the box which we always carry about
on our person, which everybody knows, and which is still lying on the
mantelpiece in Miss Dionysia's little boudoir. Well, having no matches,
we found that we could go no farther without a smoke. We had gone quite
far already; and the question was, Shall we go on without smoking, or
return? No need of either! There was our gun; and we knew very well what
sportsmen do under such circumstances. We took the shot out of one of
our cartridges, and, in setting the powder on fire, we lighted a piece
of paper. This is an operation in which you cannot help blackening your
fingers. As we had to repeat it several times, our hands were very much
soiled and very black, and the nails full of little fragments of burnt
paper."

"Ah! now you are right," exclaimed M. Magloire. "Well done!"

His young colleague became more and more animated; and always employing
the profession "we," which his brethren affect, he went on,--

"This water, which you dwell upon so much, is the clearest evidence of
our innocence. If we had been an incendiary, we should certainly
have poured it out as hurriedly as the murderer tries to wash out the
blood-stains on his clothes, which betray him."

"Very well," said M. Magloire again approvingly.

"And your other charges," continued M. Folgat, as if he were standing in
court, and addressing the jury,--"your other charges have all the same
weight. Our letter to Miss Dionysia--why do you refer to that? Because,
you say, it proves our premeditation. Ah! there I hold you. Are we
really so stupid and bereft of common sense? That is not our reputation.
What! we premeditate a crime, and we do not say to ourselves that we
shall certainly be convicted unless we prepare an _alibi_! What! we
leave home with the fixe