not prevent a large stain of blood being visible on the mat,
made, as Daddy Jacques informed us, by the blood which had flowed from
the wound on Mademoiselle Stangerson's forehead. Besides these stains,
drops of blood had fallen in all directions, in line with the visible
traces of the footsteps--large and black--of the murderer. Everything
led to the presumption that these drops of blood had fallen from the
wound of the man who had, for a moment, placed his red hand on the wall.
There were other traces of the same hand on the wall, but much less
distinct.

"See!--see this blood on the wall!" I could not help exclaiming.
"The man who pressed his hand so heavily upon it in the darkness must
certainly have thought that he was pushing at a door! That's why
he pressed on it so hard, leaving on the yellow paper the terrible
evidence. I don't think there are many hands in the world of that sort.
It is big and strong and the fingers are nearly all one as long as the
other! The thumb is wanting and we have only the mark of the palm; but
if we follow the trace of the hand," I continued, "we see that, after
leaving its imprint on the wall, the touch sought the door, found it,
and then felt for the lock--"

"No doubt," interrupted Rouletabille, chuckling,--"only there is no
blood, either on the lock or on the bolt!"

"What does that prove?" I rejoined with a good sense of which I was
proud; "he might have opened the lock with his left hand, which would
have been quite natural, his right hand being wounded."

"He didn't open it at all!" Daddy Jacques again exclaimed. "We are not
fools; and there were four of us when we burst open the door!"

"What a queer hand!--Look what a queer hand it is!" I said.

"It is a very natural hand," said Rouletabille, "of which the shape has
been deformed by its having slipped on the wall. The man dried his hand
on the wall. He must be a man about five feet eight in height."

"How do you come at that?"

"By the height of the marks on the wall."

My friend next occupied himself with the mark of the bullet in the wall.
It was a round hole.

"This ball was fired straight, not from above, and consequently, not
from below."

Rouletabille went back to the door and carefully examined the lock and
the bolt, satisfying himself that the door had certainly been burst open
from the outside, and, further, that the key had been found in the lock
on the inside of the chamber. He finally satisfied himse