and said, in a low voice: 'There's some one in the drawing room.' I
heard a noise myself. I got up and softly pushed the door leading to
this boudoir. At the same moment, the door over there, which opens
into the big drawing room, was thrown back and a man appeared who
leaped at me and stunned me with a blow on the temple. I am telling
you this without any details, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, for
the simple reason that I remember only the principal facts, and that
these facts followed upon one another with extraordinary swiftness."

"And after that?--"

"After that, I don't know--I fainted. When I came to, Daval lay
stretched by my side, mortally wounded."

"At first sight, do you suspect no one?"

"No one."

"You have no enemy?"

"I know of none."

"Nor M. Daval either?"

"Daval! An enemy? He was the best creature that ever lived. M. Daval
was my secretary for twenty years and, I may say, my confidant; and
I have never seen him surrounded with anything but love and
friendship."

"Still, there has been a burglary and there has been a murder: there