-who? If the
picture of some one was graven there, was it not the last image
reflected on the little mirror of the retina? What if a face was
reflected there! What if it was still retained in the depths of those
wide-open eyes! That strange creature, Bernardet, half crazy, enthused
with new ideas, with the mysteries which traverse chimerical brains,
troubled him--Ginory, a man of statistics and of facts.

But truly those dead eyes seemed to appeal, to speak, to designate some
one. What more eloquent, what more terrible witness could there be than
the dead man himself, if it was possible for his eyes to speak; if that
organ of life should contain, shut up within it, preserved, the secret
of death? Bernardet, whose eyes never left the magistrate's face, ought
to have been content, for it plainly expressed doubt, a hesitation, and
the police officer heard him cursing under his breath.

"Folly! Stupidity! Bah! we shall see!"

Bernardet was filled with hope. M. Ginory, the Examining Magistrate,
was, moreover, convinced that, for the present, and the sooner the
better, the corpse should be sent to the Morgue. There, only, could a
thorough and scientific examination be made. The reporter listened
intently to the conversation, and Mme. Moniche clasped her hands, more
and more agonized by that word Morgue, which, among the people, produces
the same terror that that other word, which means, however, careful
attendance, scientific treatment and safety,--hospital, does.

Nothing was now to be done except to question some of the neighbors and
to take a sketch of the salon. Bernardet said to the Magistrate: "My
photograph will give you that!" While some one went out to get a hearse,
the Magistrates went away, the police officer placed a guard in front of
the house. The crowd was constantly increasing and becoming more and
more curious, violently excited and eager to see the spectacle--the
murdered man borne from his home.

Bernardet did not allow M. Ginory to go away without asking respectfully
if he would be allowed to photograph the dead man's eye. Without giving
him a formal answer, M. Ginory simply told him to be present at the
autopsy at the Morgue. Evidently if the Magistrate had not been already
full of doubt his reply would have been different. Why did that inferior
officer have the audacity to give his opinion on the subject of
conducting a judicial investigation? M. Ginory would long before this
have sent him about his