“A. I know nothing more, monsieur, than that a man threw himself upon me and that I fired at him. I know nothing more.” Here the interrogation of Mademoiselle Stangerson concluded. Rouletabille waited patiently for Monsieur Robert Darzac, who soon appeared. From a room near the chamber of Mademoiselle Stangerson, he had heard the interrogatory and now came to recount it to my friend with great exactitude, aided by an excellent memory. His docility still surprised me. Thanks to hasty pencil-notes, he was able to reproduce, almost textually, the questions and the answers given. It looked as if Monsieur Darzac were being employed as the secretary of my young friend and acted as if he could refuse him nothing; nay, more, as if under a compulsion to do so. The fact of the closed window struck the reporter as it had struck the magistrate. Rouletabille asked Darzac to repeat once more Mademoiselle Stangerson’s account of how she and her father had spent their time on the day of the tragedy, as she had stated it to the magistrate. The circumstance of the dinner in the laboratory seemed to interest him in the highest degree; and he had it repeated to him three times. He also wanted to be sure that the forest-keeper knew that the professor and his daughter were going to dine in the laboratory, and how he had come to know it. When Monsieur Darzac had finished, I said: “The examination has not advanced the problem much.” “It has put it back,” said Monsieur Darzac. “It has thrown light upon it,” said Rouletabille, thoughtfully. Chapter IX Reporter and Detective The three of us went back towards the pavilion. At some distance from the building the reporter made us stop and, pointing to a small clump of trees to the right of us, said:— “That’s where the murderer came from to get into the pavilion.” As there were other patches of trees of the same sort between the great oaks, I asked why the murderer had chosen that one, rather than any of the others. Rouletabille answered me by pointing to the path which ran quite close to the thicket to the door of the pavilion.