M. Filleul smiled; he was accustomed to differences of opinion and sight in witnesses to one and the same fact: “So we have to do, on the one hand, with a man, the one in the drawing room, who is, at the same time, tall and short, stout and thin, and, on the other, with two men, those in the park, who are accused of removing from that drawing room objects—which are still here!” M. Filleul was a magistrate of the ironic school, as he himself would say. He was also a very ambitious magistrate and one who did not object to an audience nor to an occasion to display his tactful resource in public, as was shown by the increasing number of persons who now crowded into the room. The journalists had been joined by the farmer and his son, the gardener and his wife, the indoor servants of the château and the two cabmen who had driven the flies from Dieppe. M. Filleul continued: “There is also the question of agreeing upon the way in which the third person disappeared. Was this the gun you fired, mademoiselle, and from this window?” “Yes. The man reached the tombstone which is almost buried under the brambles, to the left of the cloisters.” “But he got up again?” “Only half. Victor ran down at once to guard the little door and I followed him, leaving the second footman, Albert, to keep watch here.” Albert now gave his evidence and the magistrate concluded: “So, according to you, the wounded man was not able to escape on the left, because your fellow-servant was watching the door, nor on the right, because you would have seen him cross the lawn. Logically, therefore, he is, at the present moment, in the comparatively restricted space that lies before our eyes.” “I am sure of it.” “And you, mademoiselle?” “Yes.” “And I, too,” said Victor. The deputy prosecutor exclaimed, with a leer: “The field of inquiry is quite narrow. We have only to continue the search commenced four hours ago.” “We may be more fortunate.” M. Filleul took the leather cap from the mantel, examined it and, beckoning to the sergeant of gendarmes, whispered: “Sergeant, send one of your men to Dieppe at once. Tell him to go to Maigret, the hatter, in the Rue de la Barre, and ask M. Maigret to tell him, if possible, to whom this cap was sold.” The “field of inquiry,” in the deputy’s phrase, was limited to the space contained between the house, the lawn on the right and the angle formed by the left wall and the wall opposite the house, that is to say, a quadrilateral of about a hundred yards each way, in which the ruins of Ambrumésy, the famous mediæval monastery, stood out at intervals.