door; a big handkerchief red with blood, without any initials, an
old cap, and many fresh footmarks of a man on the floor,--footmarks
of a man with large feet whose boot-soles had left a sort of sooty
impression. How had this man got away? How had he vanished? Don't
forget, monsieur, that there is no chimney in The Yellow Room. He
could not have escaped by the door, which is narrow, and on the
threshold of which the concierge stood with the lamp, while her
husband and I searched for him in every corner of the little room,
where it is impossible for anyone to hide himself. The door, which
had been forced open against the wall, could not conceal anything
behind it, as we assured ourselves. By the window, still in every
way secured, no flight had been possible. What then?--I began
to believe in the Devil.

"'But we discovered my revolver on the floor!--Yes, my revolver!
Oh! that brought me back to the reality! The Devil would not have
needed to steal my revolver to kill Mademoiselle. The man who had
been there had first gone up to my attic and taken my revolver from
the drawer where I kept it. We then ascertained, by counting the
cartridges, that the assassin had fired two shots. Ah! it was
fortunate for me that Monsieur Stangerson was in the laboratory
when the affair took place and had seen with his own eyes that I
was there with him; for otherwise, with this business of my revolver,
I don't know where we should have been,--I should now be under lock
and bar. Justice wants no more to send a man to the scaffold!'"

The editor of the "Matin" added to this interview the following
lines:

"We have, without interrupting him, allowed Daddy Jacques to recount