“Does His Honour wish to take the evidence of Monsieur Jérôme Fandor?”

“In four lines then. I do not think Monsieur Fandor has anything more to tell us than what he has already told us in the columns of La Capitale. That is so, is it not?” asked the magistrate, looking at Fandor.

“That is correct,” replied the newsman.

The clerk rapidly drew up the deposition of Monsieur Jérôme Fandor, in due form, and read it aloud in a monotonous voice.

Fandor signed it. It did not compromise him at all.

He was about to leave when Monsieur Fuselier caught him by the arm.

“Please wait a minute! There are one or two points to be cleared up: I am going to ask the witnesses a few questions: we will have a general confrontation – we will compare evidence!”

Then, the journalist’s friend, now every inch the magistrate, asked the assembled witnesses various questions, in a forceful and professional tone.

Fandor, seated a little apart, had time to examine the faces of the different persons whom circumstances had brought together in this room.

His first look was for Elizabeth: energy and courage were plainly marked on her pretty, sad face. Then there was the proprietor of the Auteuil boarding-house: an honest, vulgar creature, red-faced, perpetually mopping her brow and raising her hands to heaven; ready to bewail her position, deploring the untimely publicity given to this affair, a publicity which threatened to discredit her establishment.

As he was seated directly behind the manservant, Jules, Fandor had a view of his broad back, surmounted by a big bullet head and ruffled hair. This witness spoke with a strong Picardy accent, and there was nothing remarkable about his answers: he seemed the conventional second-rate type of servant. He did not seem to have understood much of what occurred on the famous day: when questioned as to the order of events, his answers were vague, uncertain.

Then, seated beside Fandor were the bankers: Barbey, a grave-looking man, no longer young judging by his beard, which was going grey; he was decorated with the Legion of Honour: the other, Nanteuil, looked about thirty, elegant, distinguished, lively. These two were well known in the highest Parisian society as representing finance of the best kind. They were most highly thought of.

The magistrate asked the bankers a question.

“Why,” he asked, “did Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil call on Mademoiselle Dollon? Was it to bring her some help, as has been stated?”

Elizabeth blushed with humiliation at the magistrate’s question. Monsieur Nanteuil answered: