"No; the door is always open."

"Well, then, of any door or cupboard in the room?"

At this question his face flushed purple: he stammered, "There is
no"--and abruptly paused.

"Do I understand you to say there is no cupboard or place of concealment
in the room?"

"No: here is the key."

"Has any one had access to the cupboard or recess of which this is the
key, except yourself?"

The young man shook as if smitten with ague: his lips chattered, but no
articulate sound escaped them.

"You need not answer the question," said the magistrate, "unless you
choose to do so. I again warn you that all you say will, if necessary,
be used against you."

"No one," he at length gasped, mastering his hesitation by a strong
exertion of the will--"no one can have had access to the place but
myself. I have never parted with the key."

Mrs. Bourdon was now called in. After interchanging a glance of intense
agony, and, as it seemed to me, of affectionate intelligence with her
son, she calmly answered the questions put to her. They were unimportant,