endarmes. The capture
of the criminal, imminent though it might be, had not yet been
effected, but every outlet of the park was held. Escape was impossible.

The little company next crossed the chapter-hall and the refectory,
both of which are on the ground floor, and went up to the first story.
They at once remarked the perfect order that prevailed in the drawing
room. Not a piece of furniture, not an ornament but appeared to occupy
its usual place; nor was there any gap among the ornaments or
furniture. On the right and left walls hung magnificent Flemish
tapestries with figures. On the panels of the wall facing the windows
were four fine canvases, in contemporary frames, representing
mythological scenes. These were the famous pictures by Rubens which had
been left to the Comte de Gesvres, together with the Flemish
tapestries, by his maternal uncle, the Marques de Bobadilla, a Spanish
grandee.

M. Filleul remarked:

"If the motive of the crime was theft, this drawing room, at any rate,
was not the object of it."

"You can't tell!" said the deputy, who spoke little, but who, when he
did, invariably opposed the magistrate's views.

"Why, my dear sir, the first thought of a burglar would be to carry off
those pictures and tapestries, which are universally renowned."

"Perhaps there was no time."

"We shall see."

At that moment, the Comte de Gesvres entered, accompanied by the
doctor. The count, who did not seem to feel the effects of the attack
to which he had been subjected, welcomed the two officials. Then he
opened the door of the boudoir.

This room, which no one had been allowed to enter since the discovery
of the crime, differed from the drawing room inasmuch as it presented a
scene of the greatest disorder. Two chairs were overturned, one of the
tables smashed to pieces and several objects--a traveling-clock, a
portfolio, a box of stationery--lay on the floor. And there was blood
on some of the scattered pieces of note-paper.

The doctor turned back the sheet that covered the corpse. Jean Daval,
dressed in his usual velvet suit, with a pair of nailed boots on his
feet, lay stretched on his back, with one arm folded beneath him. His
collar and tie had been removed and his shirt opened, revealing a large
wound in the chest.

"Death must have been instantaneous," declared the doctor. "One blow of
the knife was enough."

"It was, no doubt, the knife which I saw on the drawing-room
mantelpiece, next t