"By Jove!" exclaimed the corporal, evidently struck.

"The widow," continued the old fellow, "knew the person who knocked.
Her haste to open the door gives rise to this conjecture; what follows
proves it. The assassin then gained admission without difficulty. He
is a young man, a little above the middle height, elegantly dressed. He
wore on that evening a high hat. He carried an umbrella, and smoked a
trabucos cigar in a holder."

"Ridiculous!" cried Gevrol. "This is too much."

"Too much, perhaps," retorted old Tabaret. "At all events, it is the
truth. If you are not minute in your investigations, I cannot help it;
anyhow, I am, I search, and I find. Too much, say you? Well deign to
glance at these lumps of damp plaster. They represent the heels of the
boots worn by the assassin, of which I found a most perfect impression
near the ditch, where the key was picked up. On these sheets of paper,
I have marked in outline the imprint of the foot which I cannot take
up, because it is on some sand. Look! heel high, instep pronounced, sole
small and narrow,--an elegant boot, belonging to a foot well cared for
evidently. Look for this impression all along the path; and you will
find it again twice. Then you will find it five times repeated in the
garden where no one else had been; and these footprints prove, by
the way, that the stranger knocked not at the door, but at the
window-shutter, beneath which shone a gleam of light. At the entrance to
the garden, the man leapt to avoid a flower bed! the point of the foot,
more deeply imprinted than usual, shows it. He leapt more than two yards
with ease, proving that he is active, and therefore young."

Old Tabaret spoke in a low voice, clear and penetrating: and his eye