A friend! A friend could have abused the dead man's secret and opened that safe! And that friend--what name did he bear? Whom did M. Ginory wish to designate? Dantin, in spite of his _sang froid_, experienced a violent temptation to ask the man what he meant by those words. But the strange sensation which this interview caused him increased. It seemed to him that he had been there a long time--a very long time since he had crossed that threshold--and that this little room, separated from the world like a monk's cell, had walls thick enough to prevent any one from hearing anything outside. He felt as if hypnotized by that man, who at first had met him with a pleasant air, and who now bent upon him those hard eyes. Something doubtful, like vague danger, surrounded him, menaced him, and he mechanically followed the gesture which M. Ginory made as he touched the ivory button of an electric bell, as if on this gesture depended some event of his life. A guard entered. M. Ginory said to him in a short tone: "Have the notes been brought?" "M. Bernardet has just brought them to me, Monsieur le Juge." "Give them to me!" He then added: "Is Monsieur Bernardet here?" "Yes, Monsieur le Juge." "Very well." Jacques Dantin remembered the little man with whom he had talked in the journey from the house of death to the tomb, where he had heard some one call "Bernardet." He did not know at the time, but the name had struck him. Why did his presence seem of so much importance to this Examining Magistrate? And he looked, in his turn, at M. Ginory, who, a little near-sighted, was bending his head, with its sandy hair, its bald forehead, on which the veins stood out like cords, over his notes, which had been brought to him. Interesting notes--important, without doubt--for, visibly satisfied, M. Ginory allowed a word or two to escape him: "Good! Yes--Yes--Fine! Ah! Ah!--Very good!" Then suddenly Dantin saw Ginory raise his head and look at him--as the saying is--in the white of the eyes. He waited a moment before speaking, and suddenly put this question, thrust at Dantin like a knife-blow: "Are you a gambler, as I find?" The question made Jacques Dantin fairly bound from his chair. A gambler! Why did this man ask him if he was a gambler? What had his habits, his customs, his vices even, to do with this cause for which he had been cited, to do with Rovère's murder? "You are a gambler," continued the Examining Magistrate, casting from time to time a keen glance toward his notes. "One of the inspectors of gambling dens saw you lose at the Cercle des Publicistes 25,000 francs in one night." "It is possible; the only important point is that I paid them!" The response was short, crisp, showing a little irritation and stupefaction. "Assuredly," said the Judge. "But you have no fortune. You have recently borrowed a considerable sum from the usurers in order to pay for some losses at the Bourse."