nation of it. But I had learned never to press Rouletabille in
his narratives. He spoke when the fancy took him and when he judged it
to be right. He was less concerned about my curiosity than he was for
making a complete summing up for himself of any important matter in
which he was interested.

At last, in short rapid phrases, he acquainted me with things which
plunged me into a state bordering on complete bewilderment. Indeed, the
results of that still unknown science known as hypnotism, for example,
were not more inexplicable than the disappearance of the "matter" of
the murderer at the moment when four persons were within touch of him. I
speak of hypnotism as I would of electricity, for of the nature of both
we are ignorant and we know little of their laws. I cite these examples
because, at the time, the case appeared to me to be only explicable by
the inexplicable,--that is to say, by an event outside of known natural
laws. And yet, if I had had Rouletabille's brain, I should, like him,
have had a presentiment of the natural explanation; for the most curious
thing about all the mysteries of the Glandier case was the natural
manner in which he explained them.

I have among the papers that were sent me by the young man, after the
affair was over, a note-book of his, in which a complete account is
given of the phenomenon of the disappearance of the "matter" of the
assassin, and the thoughts to which it gave rise in the mind of my young
friend. It is preferable, I think, to give the reader this account,
rather than continue to reproduce my conversation with Rouletabille; for
I should be afraid, in a history of this nature, to add a word that was
not in accordance with the strictest truth.

CHAPTER XV. The Trap

(EXTRACT FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF JOSEPH ROULETABILLE)

"Last night--the night between the 29th and 30th of October--" wrote
Joseph Rouletabille, "I woke up towards one o'clock in the morning. Was
it sleeplessness, or noise without?--The cry of the Bete du Bon Dieu
rang out with sinister loudness from the end of the park. I rose and
opened the window. Cold wind and rain; opaque darkness; silence. I
reclosed my window. Again the sound of the cat's weird cry in the
distance. I partly dressed in haste. The weather was too bad for even
a cat to be turned out in it. What did it mean, then--that imitating
of the mewing of Mother Angenoux' cat so near the chateau? I seized a
good-sized stick, the only weapon