one of them far enough away from the body so that not one could have struck Bernier down. And Bernier had accused Larsan! Where was Larsan? _In whose body?_--according to the reasoning which I had set forth to her myself in telling her the story of the “inexplicable gallery”? She had been under the arch with Darzac and myself, standing between us, with Rouletabille in front of us, when the death cry had resounded at the end of the shadow of the eucalyptus tree--that is to say, at least, seven meters away. As to Old Bob and Mere Bernier, they had not been separated; the one had watched over the other. If she placed them outside the realms of possibility, there was no one left to kill Bernier. Not alone this time was everyone ignorant how _he_ had departed but also of _how he had been present_. Ah, she understood now that when one thought of Larsan there were moments in which one shivered to the marrow of one’s bones! Nothing! Nothing anywhere around the corpse but the stone knife which Old Bob had stolen! It was frightful--it was reason enough for us to think of everything--to imagine everything! She read the certainty of this conviction in the eyes and in the manner of Rouletabille and of Robert Darzac. But she understood as soon as the young man began speaking that he seemed to have no other end in view than to save Old Bob from the suspicions of the authorities. Rouletabille was given a seat between the delegato and the examining magistrate who had arrived while Mme. Edith had been testifying, and he gave his evidence (or rather, reasoned the matter out) holding the “oldest knife known to the human race” in his hand. It seemed definitely established that the guilty person could have been no other than one of the living men and women who were near the dead man and whom I have enumerated above, when Rouletabille proved with a logical accuracy that overwhelmed the examining magistrate and plunged the delegato into despair that the deed could only have been committed by the dead man himself. The four persons at the postern gate and the two persons in Old Bob’s room had each been looking at the others and had not lost sight of each other while _someone_ was killing Bernier a few steps away, so it was impossible to believe that the killing could have been done by any other than the victim.