“Gently, dear Madame,” interrupted Rouletabille. “There is no question of judges and we hope that there may not be. There’s no need of it. Larsan was a dead man in the eyes of the whole world long before he was killed last night--he will continue to be dead, that is all! We have decided that it would be useless to reopen a scandal of which M. and Mme. Darzac have already been made the innocent victims and we have counted upon your assistance. The affair has happened in so mysterious a fashion that even you, if we had not informed you in regard to it, would never have suspected. But M. and Mme. Darzac are endowed with sentiments too noble to permit them to forget what they owe to their hosts. The most simple rules of hospitality ordered them to tell you that they killed a man in your house last night. How foolish it would be to lay bare this unfortunate story to some Italian police officer and subject you to the inconvenience of having your names coupled with the miserable business, and, it might easily be, to have a search made of your house and hired servants of the law under your roof! M. and Mme. Darzac, for your sakes alone, are anxious that you should not run the risk of being the object of idle gossip, or, perhaps, of having the police descend upon your home.” M. Arthur Rance, who up to this time had remained speechless, arose and said, his face as pallid as though he had seen a ghost: “Frederic Larsan is dead. Well, so far so good, and no one is more rejoiced than myself to know it. And if he has received the punishment due to his crimes from the hand of M. Darzac, no one is more to be congratulated than M. Darzac. But I consider that it would be wrong for M. Darzac to make any attempt to conceal an act which is an honor to himself. It would be better to inform the authorities and without delay. If they should come to learn of this affair from others, rather than by our means, think of what the situation would be! If we give out the information ourselves, we shall show that an act of justice has been committed. If we conceal anything, we shall place ourselves in the category of malefactors. People might even suppose----” To listen to M. Rance’s stammering speech and to observe his demeanor, one might almost have imagined that he was the slayer of Frederic Larsan--he who was in danger of being accused of murder and dragged to prison. “It is necessary to think of everything, gentlemen,” he concluded. And Edith added: “I believe that my husband is right. But before we come to a decision, we ought to know just what has happened.”