"Monsieur," (and his tone became rapid, precise, running up and down like a ball), "thirty years, or, rather, to be exact, twenty-six years ago, some American journals, not political, but scientific, published the fact that the daguerrotype--we have made long strides since then in photography--had permitted them to find in the retina of a murdered man's eye the image of the one who struck him." "Yes, I know," said M. Ginory. "In 1860, I was too young, and I had no desire to prove the truth of this discovery. I adore photography as I adore my profession. I pass my leisure hours in taking instantaneous pictures, in developing them, printing, and finishing them. The idea of what I am about to propose to you came to me by chance. I bought upon one of the quays a volume of the Societé de Medicine Legale of 1869, in which Dr. Vernois gives an account of a communication sent to the society by a physician, who also sent photographic proofs, thus indorsed: 'Photographs taken of the retina of a woman assassinated the 14th of June, 1868.'" "Yes," again said M. Ginory. "It was a communication from Dr. Bourion, of Darnez." "Precisely." "And the proof sent by the Doctor showed the instant when, after striking the mother, the assassin killed the child, while the dog sprang toward the little carriage in which the little one lay." "Yes, Monsieur Ginory." "Oh, well, but my poor Bernardet, Dr. Vernois, since you have read his report"---- "By chance, Monsieur, I found it on a book stall and it has kept running in my head ever since, over and over and over again." "Dr. Vernois, my poor fellow, made many experiments. At first the proof sent was so confused, so hazy, that no one who had not seen what Bourion had written could have told what it was. If Vernois, who was a very scientific man, could find nothing--nothing, I repeat--which justified Dr. Bourion's declarations, what do you expect that any one else could make of those researches? Do not talk any more or even think any more about it." "I beg your pardon, Monsieur Ginory; one can and ought to think about it. In any case, I am thinking about it." A smile of doubt crossed M. Ginory's lips. Bernardet quickly added: "Photography of the invisible has been proven. Are not the Roentgen Rays, the famous X Rays, as incredible as that photography can find the image of a murderer on the retina of a dead person's eye? They invent some foolish things, those Americans, but they often presage the truth. Do they not catch, by photography, the last sighs of the dying? Do they not fix upon the film or on plates that mysterious thing which haunts us, the occult? They throw bridges across unknown abysses as over great bodies of water or from one precipice to another, and they reach the other side. I beg your pardon, Monsieur," and the police officer stopped short in his enthusiastic defence as he caught sight of M. Ginory's astonished face; "I seem to have been making a speech, a thing I detest."