Closing the door with considerable precaution, the agent, with firm step, a sonorous cough, and head raised in military fashion, as he stood at attention, appeared before his principals. The Minister examined for a moment the man’s frank, martial face; then he asked briefly— “Colonel Vallenot has reported all that had taken place up to the time of his departure from Vanves. Complete his version by telling us what you have learnt since. Take a seat, Vallenot.” “Monsieur le Ministre,” said the agent, “I will come at once to the most important point: the body of General de Trémont has been found.” “In the ruins?” “In the garden. At first no one thought of searching beyond the house and the _débris_. It was whilst exploring the bushes that the body of the General was discovered, close to the entrance gate.” “What! Had the explosion projected him so far?” The agent replied— “The body had not been projected by the explosion. It had remained on the very spot where it had been struck by a knife under the left shoulder-blade. The General was dead when the explosion took place, and certainly the explosion was caused by the assassin.” “The man with the foreign accent? The companion of the lady the General called ‘Baroness’?” The agent kept his countenance before these bold questions. For a moment he appeared to be reflecting; then he said— “Yes, the one who has left his arm in the ruins of the villa, and who in forcing open the chest escaped death only by a miracle. The man named Hans, in short.” “But what makes you say that he escaped death?” asked the Minister. “Because I found tracks in the garden continued outside on the road he followed, leaving his blood behind at every step. The man must be endowed with indomitable energy to have had the strength to escape, mutilated as he was, to reach the fields, and there, doubtless, find some market cart or other to pick him up and carry him to Paris; but this is an additional inquiry to be made, and a track to be followed up.” “In your opinion, then, it is the man who came with the woman who killed the General?” “Yes, Monsieur le Ministre; most likely when the General was conducting them back to the carriage. The murder took place close to the gate. The sand is trodden down as though a struggle had taken place, and the body had been carried off behind the bushes. The traces of the trailing legs are quite visible. The woman probably helped. At any rate, once the murder accomplished, she must have left, whilst the man stayed behind. He robbed the General of his keys, which never left him, and which have not been found; in addition, he took his watch and portfolio, so that it might be believed that a murder, the motive of which was robbery, had been committed; then he entered the villa, and worked in the laboratory. It was with the laboratory that he had to do.” “How do you know this?”