“There is a slight distinction to be made, Your Honour, and Mademoiselle Dollon certainly will not object to our mentioning it. It never entered our minds to offer Mademoiselle Dollon charity – charity she never asked of us, let it be clearly understood. Mademoiselle Dollon, with whom we had previously been acquainted, whose misfortunes have inspired us with deep sympathy, wrote to ask us if we could find her some employment. Hoping to find some post for her, we came to see her, to talk with her, to find out what her capabilities were. That is all. We were very glad it so happened, that we were able to aid Monsieur Fandor in restoring her to life.”

“Can you tell me, Monsieur Fandor, did you notice anything suspicious in Mademoiselle Dollon’s room, when you entered it? You wrote in your article, that at first you had thought it simply an attempted burglary, followed by an attempted murder?”

“That is so,” replied Fandor. “As soon as I opened the window, I leaned out: I wanted to see if there was anything suspicious on the wall of the house. I also looked behind the shutters.”

“Why?” asked the examining magistrate.

“Because I had not forgotten the close of the Thomery drama – the same Monsieur Thomery mentioned in the Assize Court yesterday – oh, in all honour of course; but you have not forgotten – although that examination was not in your hands, and I regret it, because I am of the opinion that there are points of connection interlinking all these mysterious affairs – you have not forgotten, I am sure, that when the investigations were over and Monsieur Thomery’s guests had been allowed to leave the house, that a thread of flax was discovered hanging to the window-fastening of the room in which Princess Danidoff had been found unconscious. This flax thread was very strong and was broken at the end: it is easy to conclude that the stolen pearls had been temporarily fastened to it. This led me to think that the attacker, or attackers, had remained in the reception rooms during the whole course of the investigations, since it is proved that no one left the house.

“But, after all, we are not here to investigate the Thomery affair.... I wished to explain why I had examined the window and shutters of Mademoiselle Dollon’s room: I wanted to ascertain whether the procedure of the would-be murderer of Mademoiselle Dollon was similar to that of the robber in the Danidoff-Thomery case.”

“And what conclusion did you come to?” asked the magistrate.

“Window and shutters bore no traces that I could see,” said Fandor. “I could not come to any conclusion.” Here Monsieur Barbey intervened.