forward, with immense violence, and it seemed to him that only
chance, a miraculous chance, caused him to escape a heap of pebbles on
which, logically, he ought to have broken his head.

He lay for a few seconds stunned. Then, all covered with bruises, with
the skin flayed from his knees, he examined the spot. On the right lay
a small wood, by which his aggressor had no doubt fled. Beautrelet
untied the rope. To the tree on the left around which it was fastened a
small piece of paper was fixed with string. Beautrelet unfolded it and
read:

"The third and last warning."

He went on to the chateau, put a few questions to the servants and
joined the examining magistrate in a room on the ground floor, at the
end of the right wing, where M. Filleul used to sit in the course of
his operations. M. Filleul was writing, with his clerk seated opposite
to him. At a sign from him, the clerk left the room; and the magistrate
exclaimed:

"Why, what have you been doing to yourself, M. Beautrelet? Your hands
are covered with blood."

"It's nothing, it's nothing," said the young man. "Just a fall
occasioned by this rope, which was stretched in front of my bicycle. I
will only ask you to observe that the rope comes from the chateau. Not
longer than twenty minutes ago, it was being used to dry linen on,
outside the laundry."

"You don't mean to say so!"

"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I am being watched here, by some one
in the very heart of the place, who can see me, who can hear me and
who, minute by minute, observes my actions and knows my intentions."

"Do you think so?"

"I am sure of it. It is for you to discover him and you will have no
difficulty in that. As for myself, I want to have finished and to give
you the promised explanations. I have made faster progress than our
adversaries expected and I am convinced that they mean to take vigorous
measures on their side. The circle is closing around me. The danger is
approaching. I feel it."

"Nonsense, Beautrelet--"

"You wait and see! For the moment, let us lose no time. And, first, a
question on a point which I want to have done with at once. Have you
spoken to anybody of that document which Sergeant Quevillon picked up
and handed you in my presence?"

"No, indeed; not to a soul. But do you attach any value--?"

"The greatest value. It's an idea of mine, an idea, I confess, which
does not rest upon a proof of any kind--for, up to the present, I have
not succeeded