“What a case! What a case! We shall never know, you’ll see, how the murderer was able to get out of this room!” Then suddenly, with a radiant face, he called to the officer in charge of the gendarmes. “Go to the château,” he said, “and request Monsieur Stangerson and Monsieur Robert Darzac to come to me in the laboratory, also Daddy Jacques; and let your men bring here the two concierges.” Five minutes later all were assembled in the laboratory. The Chief of the Sûreté, who had arrived at the Glandier, joined us at that moment. I was seated at Monsieur Stangerson’s desk ready for work, when Monsieur de Marquet made us the following little speech—as original as it was unexpected:— “With your permission, gentlemen—as examinations lead to nothing—we will, for once, abandon the old system of interrogation. I will not have you brought before me one by one, but we will all remain here as we are,—Monsieur Stangerson, Monsieur Robert Darzac, Daddy Jacques, and the two concierges, the Chief of the Sûreté, the Registrar, and myself. We shall all be on the same footing. The concierges may, for the moment, forget that they have been arrested. We are going to confer together. We are on the spot where the crime was committed. We have nothing else to discuss but the crime. So let us discuss it freely—intelligently or otherwise, so long as we speak just what is in our minds. There need be no formality or method since this won’t help us in any way.” Then, passing before me, he said in a low voice: “What do you think of that, eh? What a scene! Could _you_ have thought of that? I’ll make a little piece out of it for the Vaudeville.” And he rubbed his hands with glee. I turned my eyes on Monsieur Stangerson. The hope he had received from the doctor’s latest reports, who had stated that Mademoiselle Stangerson might recover from her wounds, had not been able to efface from his noble features the marks of the great sorrow that was upon him. He had believed his daughter to be dead, and he was still broken by that belief. His clear, soft, blue eyes expressed infinite sorrow. I had had occasion, many times, to see Monsieur Stangerson at public ceremonies, and from the first had been struck by his countenance, which seemed as pure as that of a child—the dreamy gaze with the sublime and mystical expression of the inventor and thinker.