But to a calm, perceptive observer of the two people standing face to face, it would have been clear that Jérôme Fandor’s real attitude was both suppliant and persuasive, and that Elizabeth Dollon’s was one of overwhelming surprise.Monsieur Fuselier, carried away by the journalist’s startling and extraordinary statements, did not perceive this.

Suddenly, he saw in Jérôme Fandor the denunciator, and in Elizabeth Dollon, the accomplice unmasked. Nevertheless, he said quietly:

“Monsieur Fandor, you have just uttered words of such gravity that you are bound to confirm them by indisputable evidence. Do you mean to persist on these lines?” Fandor looked away from the stupefied Elizabeth and her questioning glance: he answered the magistrate at once: “The proof of what I advance, you will find by searching Mademoiselle Dollon’s room... I would rather not say more than that.”

“Allow me to state, monsieur, that I cannot arrange for such an investigation until tomorrow morning!” Then, addressing the astounded Madame Bourrat, the two bankers, and the manservant, Jules:

“Madame, messieurs, will you be kind enough to withdraw? Madame, I advise you, under pain of the most serious consequences, not to allow anyone whatsoever to enter your premises, nor go into Mademoiselle Dollon’s room, before this matter has been fully sifted by the legal authorities. Be good enough to wait in the passage – all of you!” Having witnessed their exit, the magistrate walked up to Fandor, and looking him straight in the eyes said:

“Well... Out with it!”

“Well,” replied the journalist, “if you institute a search in the place I have indicated, you will find, in the chest of drawers, under a pile of Mademoiselle Dollon’s personal linen, a piece of soap wrapped up in a handkerchief. Take this soap to Monsieur Bertillon’s department, and after the scientific tests have been applied to it, you will be able to say that it bears distinct impressions of Dollon’s hand. Dollon’s!”

The magistrate gasped.

Elizabeth Dollon had fallen back into the arm-chair, from which she had risen all trembling. Her tears had ceased. She stared at the two men with wide open, terrified eyes. All the time, the clerk in spectacles wrote steadily on at his table, noting down the details of the scenes he was witnessing.

There was a pulsating silence.

Monsieur Fuselier had returned to his writing table.

Jérôme Fandor seemed to have recovered his composure, an ironic smile curved his lips beneath his small moustache, whilst his hand sought that of Elizabeth: it was the only way he could, at the moment, express the sympathy he had never ceased to feel for her.

Monsieur Fuselier filled in a printed paper and pressed an electric bell.

Two municipal guards appeared.

Monsieur Fuselier rose and signalling to the soldiers to wait, he faced Elizabeth Dollon.