The judges gathered round the President of the Court, and held a short discussion. Then they returned to their places and the President announced their decision. It was that after consideration of the statement of the witness Juve, their opinion was that it rested merely upon hypotheses, and their decision was that there was no occasion for a supplementary enquiry. And the President immediately called upon the Public Prosecutor to address the Court. Neither in the lengthy address of that functionary, nor in the ensuing address of Maître Barberoux on behalf of the defendant, was the slightest allusion made to the fresh facts adduced by the detective. The theories he put forward were so unexpected and so utterly astonishing that nobody paid the least attention to them! Then the sitting was suspended while the jury considered their verdict. The judges retired and guards removed the prisoner, and Juve, who had accepted the dismissal of his application for a further enquiry with perfect equanimity, went up to the press-box and spoke to a young journalist sitting there. "Shall we go out for a quarter of an hour, Fandor?" and when they were presently in the corridor, he smote the young fellow in a friendly way on the shoulder and enquired: "Well, my boy, what do you say to all that?" Jérôme Fandor seemed to be overwhelmed. "You accuse my father? You really accuse Etienne Rambert of being Gurn? Surely I am dreaming!" "My dear young idiot," Juve growled, "do pray understand one thing: I am not accusing your father, your real father, but only the man who represented himself to be your father! Just think: if my contention is right--that the Etienne Rambert who killed the Marquise is Gurn--it is perfectly obvious that Gurn is not your father, for he is only thirty-five years of age! He has merely represented himself to be your father." "Then who is my real father?" "I don't know anything about that," said the detective. "That's a matter we will look into one of these fine days! You take it from me that we are only just at the beginning of all these things." "But the Court has refused a supplementary enquiry." "'Gad!" said Juve, "I quite expected it would! I have not got the proofs to satisfy the legal mind; and then, too, I had to hold my tongue about the most interesting fact that I knew." "What was that?" "Why, that you are not dead, Charles Rambert! I had to conceal that fact, my boy, for the melancholy reason that I am a poor man and depend on my job. If I had let out that I had known for a long time that Charles Rambert was alive when he was supposed to be dead, and that I had known him first as Jeanne and then as Paul, and yet had said nothing about it, I should have been dismissed from the service as sure as eggs are eggs--and it is equally certain that you would have been arrested; which is precisely what I do not wish to happen!" * * * * * In tense silence the foreman of the jury rose.