u recognise
them, Daddy Jacques?"

Daddy Jacques bent over them and, stupefied, recognised a pair of old
boots which he had, some time back, thrown into a corner of his attic.
He was so taken aback that he could not hide his agitation.

Then pointing to the handkerchief in the old man's hand, Frederic Larsan
said:

"That's a handkerchief astonishingly like the one found in The Yellow
Room."

"I know," said Daddy Jacques, trembling, "they are almost alike."

"And then," continued Frederic Larsan, "the old Basque cap also found
in The Yellow Room might at one time have been worn by Daddy Jacques
himself. All this, gentlemen, proves, I think, that the murderer wished
to disguise his real personality. He did it in a very clumsy way--or,
at least, so it appears to us. Don't be alarmed, Daddy Jacques; we are
quite sure that you were not the murderer; you never left the side of
Monsieur Stangerson. But if Monsieur Stangerson had not been working
that night and had gone back to the chateau after parting with his
daughter, and Daddy Jacques had gone to sleep in his attic, no one would
have doubted that he was the murderer. He owes his safety, therefore, to
the tragedy having been enacted too soon,--the murderer, no doubt, from
the silence in the laboratory, imagined that it was empty, and that
the moment for action had come. The man who had been able to introduce
himself here so mysteriously and to leave so many evidences against
Daddy Jacques, was, there can be no doubt, familiar with the house.
At what hour exactly he entered, whether in the afternoon or in the
evening, I cannot say. One familiar with the proceedings and persons of
this pavilion could choose his own time for entering The Yellow Room."

"He could not have entered it if anybody had been in the laboratory,"
said Monsieur de Marquet.

"How do we know that?" replied Larsan. "There was the dinner in the
laboratory, the coming and going of the servants in attendance. There
was a chemical experiment being carried on between ten and eleven
o'clock, with Monsieur Stangerson, his daughter, and Daddy Jacques
engaged at the furnace in a corner of the high chimney. Who can say that
the murderer--an intimate!--a friend!--did not take advantage of that
moment to slip into The Yellow Room, after having taken off his boots in
the lavatory?"

"It is very improbable," said Monsieur Stangerson.

"Doubtless--but it is not impossible. I assert nothing. As to the escape
f