atory?

"A. For that reason.

"Q. Are you accustomed to dine in the laboratory?

"A. We rarely dine there.

"Q. Could the murderer have known that you would dine there that
evening?

"M. Stangerson. Good Heavens!--I think not. It was only when we returned
to the pavilion at six o'clock, that we decided, my daughter and I,
to dine there. At that moment I was spoken to by my gamekeeper, who
detained me a moment, to ask me to accompany him on an urgent tour of
inspection in a part of the woods which I had decided to thin. I put
this off until the next day, and begged him, as he was going by the
chateau, to tell the steward that we should dine in the laboratory.
He left me, to execute the errand and I rejoined my daughter, who was
already at work.

"Q. At what hour, mademoiselle, did you go to your chamber while your
father continued to work there?

"A. At midnight.

"Q. Did Daddy Jacques enter The Yellow Room in the course of the
evening?

"A. To shut the blinds and light the night-light.

"Q. He saw nothing suspicious?

"A. He would have told us if he had seen. Daddy Jacques is an honest man
and very attached to me.

"Q. You affirm, Monsieur Stangerson, that Daddy Jacques remained with
you all the time you were in the laboratory?

"M. Stangerson. I am sure of it. I have no doubt of that.

"Q. When you entered your chamber, mademoiselle, you immediately shut
the door and locked and bolted it? That was taking unusual precautions,
knowing that your father and your servant were there? Were you in fear
of something, then?

"A. My father would be returning to the chateau and Daddy Jacques would
be going to his bed. And, in fact, I did fear something.

"Q. You were so much in fear of something that you borrowed Daddy
Jacques's revolver without telling him you had done so?

"A. That is true. I did not wish to alarm anybody,--the more, because my
fears might have proved to have been foolish.

"Q. What was it you feared?

"A. I hardly know how to tell you. For several nights, I seemed to
hear, both in the park and out of the park, round the pavilion, unusual
sounds, sometimes footsteps, at other times the cracking of branches.
The night before the attack on me, when I did not get to bed before
three o'clock in the morning, on our return from the Elysee, I stood for
a moment before my window, and I felt sure I saw shadows.

"Q. How many?

"A. Two. They moved round the lake,--then the moon became clouded