and we heard two shots behind the door. Was not that so,
Monsieur Stangerson?"

"Yes," replied the Professor, "there were two shots, one dull, and the
other sharp and ringing."

"Why do you persist in lying?" cried Monsieur de Marquet, turning to the
concierges. "Do you think the police are the fools you are? Everything
points to the fact that you were out of doors and near the pavilion
at the time of the tragedy. What were you doing there? So far as I am
concerned," he said, turning to Monsieur Stangerson, "I can only explain
the escape of the murderer on the assumption of help from these two
accomplices. As soon as the door was forced open, and while you,
Monsieur Stangerson, were occupied with your unfortunate child, the
concierge and his wife facilitated the flight of the murderer, who,
screening himself behind them, reached the window in the vestibule, and
sprang out of it into the park. The concierge closed the window after
him and fastened the blinds, which certainly could not have closed and
fastened of themselves. That is the conclusion I have arrived at. If
anyone here has any other idea, let him state it."

Monsieur Stangerson intervened:

"What you say was impossible. I do not believe either in the guilt or
in the connivance of my concierges, though I cannot understand what
they were doing in the park at that late hour of the night. I say it was
impossible, because Madame Bernier held the lamp and did not move from
the threshold of the room; because I, as soon as the door was forced
open, threw myself on my knees beside my daughter, and no one could have
left or entered the room by the door, without passing over her body and
forcing his way by me! Daddy Jacques and the concierge had but to cast
a glance round the chamber and under the bed, as I had done on entering,
to see that there was nobody in it but my daughter lying on the floor."

"What do you think, Monsieur Darzac?" asked the magistrate.

Monsieur Darzac replied that he had no opinion to express. Monsieur Dax,
the Chief of the Surete who, so far, had been listening and examining
the room, at length deigned to open his lips:

"While search is being made for the criminal, we had better try to find
out the motive for the crime; that will advance us a little," he
said. Turning towards Monsieur Stangerson, he continued, in the even,
intelligent tone indicative of a strong character, "I understand that
Mademoiselle was shortly to have been married