"The Marquise always left it like that; she liked all the fresh air she could get." "Might not the murderer have got in that way?" The steward shook his head. "It is most unlikely, sir. See: the windows are fitted outside with a kind of grating pointing outwards and downwards, and I think that would prevent anyone from climbing in." M. de Presles saw that this was so. Continuing his investigation, he satisfied himself that there was nothing about the furniture in that room, or in the dressing-room, to show that the murderer had been through them, except the disorder on and about the little escritoire. At last he came to the door which opened on to the corridor. "Ah!" he exclaimed: "this is interesting!" and with a finger he pointed to the inner bolt on the door, the screws of which were wrenched half out, showing that an attempt had been made to force the door. "Did Mme. de Langrune bolt her door every night?" he asked. "Yes, always," Dollon answered. "She was very nervous, and if I was the first to come to bid her good morning I always heard her unfasten that bolt when I knocked." M. de Presles made no reply. He made one more tour of the room, minutely considering the situation of each single article. "M. Dollon, will you kindly take me where I can have the use of a table and inkstand, and anything else I may need to get on with my preliminary enquiry?" "Your clerk is waiting for you in the library, sir," the steward replied. "He has everything ready for you there." "Very well. If it is convenient to you we will join him now." * * * * * M. de Presles followed Dollon down to the library on the ground floor, where his enterprising clerk had already established himself. The magistrate took his seat behind a large table and called to the police sergeant. "I shall ask you to be present during my enquiry, sergeant. The first investigations will devolve upon you, so it will be well for you to hear all the details the witnesses can furnish me with. I suppose you have taken no steps as yet?" "Beg pardon, sir: I have sent my men out in all directions, with orders to interrogate all tramps and to detain any who do not give a satisfactory account of their time last night." "Good! By the way, while I think of it, have you sent off the telegram I gave you when I arrived--the telegram to the police head-quarters in Paris, asking for a detective to be sent down?" "I took it to the telegraph office myself, sir." His mind made easy on this score, the young magistrate turned to Dollon. "Will you please take a seat, sir?" he said and, disregarding the disapproving looks of his clerk, who had a particular predilection for all the long circumlocutions and red tape of the law, he pretermitted the usual questions as to name and age and occupation of the witnesses, and began his enquiry by questioning the old steward. "What is the exact plan of the château?" was his first enquiry.