tooping over the
track of the vehicle. He did not come on and I went back.

"What is it?" I said.

He answered, still stooping above the track.

"The cut-under stopped here."

"How do you know that?" I asked, for it seemed hardly possible to
determine where a wheeled vehicle had stopped.

"It's quite clear," he replied. "The horse has moved about without going
on."

I now saw it. The hoof-marks of the horse had displaced the dust where
it had several times changed position.

"And that's not all," Marquis continued. "Something has happened to the
cut-under here!"

I was now closely beside him.

"It was broken down, perhaps, or some accident to the harness?"

"No," he replied. "The wheel tracks are here broadened, as though they
had skidded on a turn. This would mean little if the cut-under had been
moving at the time. But it was not moving; the horse was standing. The
cut-under had stopped."

He went on as though in a reflection to himself.

"The vehicle must have been violently thrown about here, by something."

I had a sudden inspiration.

"I see it!" I cried. "The horse took fright, stopped, and then bolted;
there has been a run-away. That accounts for the turn out. Let's hurry!"

But Marquis detained me with a firm hand on my arm.

"No," he said, "the horse was not running when it turned out and it did
not stop here in fright. The horse was entirely quiet here. The hoof
marks would show any alarm in the animal, and, moreover, if it had
stopped in fright there would have been an inevitable recoil which would
have thrown the wheels of the vehicle backward out of their track. No
moving animal, man included, stopped by fright fails to register
this recoil. We always look for it in evidences of violent assault.
Footprints invariably show it, and one learns thereby, unerringly, the
direction of the attack."

He rose, his hand still extended and upon my arm.

"There is only one possible explanation," he added. "Something happened
in the cut-under to throw it violently about in the road, and it
happened with the horse undisturbed and the vehicle standing still. The
wheel tracks are widened only at one point, showing a transverse but no
lateral movement of the vehicle."

"A struggle?" I cried. "Major Carrington was right, Madame Barras has
been attacked by the driver!"

Marquis' hand held me firmly in the excitement of that realization.
He was entirely composed. There was even a drawl in his voice as