Baron, if this Monsieur de Gerfaut had taken anything but water during
the evening, I should say that he was the drunker of the two; or that, if
they were not such good friends, he wished to poison him in order to stop
his talk. Did you notice that he did not seem pleased to hear this
story?"

"Ah! you, too!" exclaimed the Baron angrily, "everybody will know it."

"To take a carafe of kirsch for clear water," continued the notary,
without paying any attention to the Baron's agitation. "The devil!
the safe thing to do is to give him an emetic at once; this poor fellow
has enough prussic acid in his stomach to poison a cow."

"Who is talking of prussic acid and poisoning?" exclaimed the public
prosecutor, running with an unsteady step from one extremity of the table
to the other, "who has been poisoned? I am the public prosecutor, I am
the only one here who has any power to start an investigation. Have they
had an autopsy? Where did they find it? Buried in the fields or the
woods, or floating on the river?"

"You lie! there is no dead body in the river!" exclaimed Bergenheim, in
a thundering voice, as he seized the magistrate by the collar in a
bewildered way.

The magistrate was incapable of making the least resistance when held by
such a vigorous hand and he received two or three shakings. Suddenly the
Baron stopped, and struck his forehead with a gesture common to persons
who feel that their reason has given way under a paroxysm of rage.

"I am crazy," said he, with much emotion. "Monsieur," he added, "I am