unconscious.

"Q. Was the man you saw tall or short, little or big?

"A. I only saw a shadow which appeared to me formidable.

"Q. You cannot give us any indication?

"A. I know nothing more, monsieur, than that a man threw himself
upon me and that I fired at him. I know nothing more."

Here the interrogation of Mademoiselle Stangerson concluded.

Rouletabille waited patiently for Monsieur Robert Darzac, who soon
appeared.

From a room near the chamber of Mademoiselle Stangerson, he had heard
the interrogatory and now came to recount it to my friend with great
exactitude, aided by an excellent memory. His docility still surprised
me. Thanks to hasty pencil-notes, he was able to reproduce, almost
textually, the questions and the answers given.

It looked as if Monsieur Darzac were being employed as the secretary of
my young friend and acted as if he could refuse him nothing; nay, more,
as if under a compulsion to do so.

The fact of the closed window struck the reporter as it had struck the
magistrate. Rouletabille asked Darzac to repeat once more Mademoiselle
Stangerson's account of how she and her father had spent their time
on the day of the tragedy, as she had stated it to the magistrate. The
circumstance of the dinner in the laboratory seemed to interest him in
the highest degree; and he had it repeated to him three times. He also
wanted to be sure that the forest-keeper knew that the professor and his
daughter were going to dine in the laboratory, and how he had come to
know it.

When Monsieur Darzac had finished, I said: "The examination has not
advanced the problem much."

"It has put it back," said Monsieur Darzac.

"It has thrown light upon it," said Rouletabille, thoughtfully.

CHAPTER IX. Reporter and Detective

The three of us went back towards the pavilion. At some distance from
the building the reporter made us stop and, pointing to a small clump of
trees to the right of us, said:

"That's where the murderer came from to get into the pavilion."

As there were other patches of trees of the same sort between the great
oaks, I asked why the murderer had chosen that one, rather than any of
the others. Rouletabille answered me by pointing to the path which ran
quite close to the thicket to the door of the pavilion.

"That path is as you see, topped with gravel," he said; "the man must
have passed along it going to the pavilion, since no traces of his
steps have