And, without troubling further about their amazement, he proceeded straightaway to put his questions: "There is a portrait of the Comtesse d'Andeville between the two windows. When was it hung there?" Jérôme did not reply at once. He thought for a moment, looked at his wife, and then said: "Why, that's easily answered. It was when Monsieur le Comte sent all his furniture to the house . . . before they moved in." "When was that?" Paul's agony was unendurable during the three or four seconds before the reply. "Well?" he asked. When the reply came at last it was decisive: "Well, it was in the spring of 1898." "Eighteen hundred and ninety-eight!" Paul repeated the words in a dull voice: 1898 was the year of his father's murder! Without stopping to reflect, with the coolness of an examining magistrate who does not swerve from the line which he has laid out, he asked: "So the Comte and Comtesse d'Andeville arrived . . ." "Monsieur le Comte and Madame le Comtesse arrived at the castle on the 28th of August, 1898, and left for the south on the 24th of October." Paul now knew the truth, for his father was murdered on the 19th of September. And all the circumstances which depended on that truth, which explained it in its main details or which proceeded from it at once appeared to him. He remembered that his father was on friendly terms with the Comte d'Andeville. He said to himself that his father, in the course of his journey in Alsace, must have learnt that his friend d'Andeville was living in Lorraine and must have contemplated paying him a surprise visit. He reckoned up the distance between Ornequin and Strasburg, a distance which corresponded with the time spent in the train. And he asked: "How far is this from the frontier?" "Three miles and three-quarters, sir." "On the other side, at no great distance, there's a little German town, is there not?" "Yes, sir, Èbrecourt." "Is there a short-cut to the frontier?" "Yes, sir, for about half-way: a path at the other end of the park." "Through the woods?" "Through Monsieur le Comte's woods." "And in those woods . . ." To acquire total, absolute certainty, that certainty which comes not from an interpretation of the facts but from the facts themselves, which would stand out visible and palpable, all that he had to do was to put the last question: in those woods was not there a little chapel in the middle of a glade? Paul Delroze did not put the question. Perhaps he thought it too precise, perhaps he feared lest it should induce the gamekeeper to entertain thoughts and comparisons which the nature of the conversation was already sufficient to warrant. He merely asked: "Was the Comtesse d'Andeville away at all during the six weeks which she spent at Ornequin? For two or three days, I mean?" "No, sir, Madame le Comtesse never left the grounds." "She kept to the park?"