Bernardet had only to cross some corridors and mount a few steps to reach the gallery upon which M. Ginory's room opened. While waiting to be admitted he passed up and down; seated on benches were a number of malefactors, some of whom knew him well, who were waiting examination. He was accustomed to see this sight daily, and without being moved, but this time he was overcome by a sort of agony, a spasm which contracted even his fingers and left his nerves in as quivering a state as does insomnia. Truly, in the present case he was much more concerned than in an ordinary manhunt. The officer experienced the fear which an inventor feels before the perfection of a new discovery. He had undertaken a formidable problem, apparently insoluble, and he desired to solve it. Once or twice he took out from the pocket of his redingote an old worn case and looked at the proofs of the retina which he had pasted on a card. There could be no doubt. This figure, a little confused, had the very look of the man who had bent over the grave. M. Ginory would be struck by it when he had Jacques Dantin before him. Provided the Examining Magistrate still had the desire which Bernardet had incited in him, to push the matter to the end. Fortunately M. Ginory was very curious. With this curiosity anything might happen. The time seemed long. What if this Dantin, who spoke of leaving Paris, should disappear, should escape the examination? What miserable little affair occupied M. Ginory? Would he ever be at liberty? The door opened, a man in a blouse was led out; the registrar appeared on the threshold and Bernardet asked if he could not see M. Ginory immediately, as he had an important communication to make to him. "I will not detain him long," he said. Far from appearing annoyed, the Magistrate seemed delighted to see the officer. He related to him all he knew, how he had seen the man at M. Rovère's funeral. That Mme. Moniche had recognized him as the one whom she had surprised standing with M. Rovère before the open safe. That he had signed his name and took first rank in the funeral cortège, less by reason of an old friendship which dated from childhood than by that strange and impulsive sentiment which compels the guilty man to haunt the scene of his crime, to remain near his victim, as if the murder, the blood, the corpse, held for him a morbid fascination. "I shall soon know," said M. Ginory. He dictated to the registrar a citation to appear before him, rang the bell and gave the order to serve the notice on M. Dantin at the given address and to bring him to the Palais. "Do not lose sight of him," he said to Bernardet, and began some other examinations. Bernardet bowed and his eyes shone like those of a sleuth hound on the scent of his prey. CHAPTER X.