spent the whole night in the train, for he certainly arrived by that one. He could not have a better alibi."
"Not possibly," Juve replied. "So we need only trouble ourselves with Charles Rambert," and warming up to the subject the detective proceeded to pile up a crushing indictment against the young man. "The crime was committed so quietly that not the faintest sound was heard; therefore the murderer was in the house; he went to the Marquise's room and announced his arrival by a cautious tap on the door; the Marquise then opened the door to him, and was not surprised to see him, for she knew him quite well; he went into her room with her and——"
"Oh, come, come!" M. de Presles broke in; "you are romancing now, M. Juve; you forget that the bedroom door was forced, the best proof of that being the bolt, which was found wrenched away and hanging literally at the end of the screws."
"I was expecting you to say that, sir," said Juve with a smile. "But before I reply I should like to show you something rather quaint." He led the way across the passage and went into the bedroom of the Marquise, where order had now been restored; the dead body had been removed to the library, which was transformed into a chapelle ardente, and two nuns were watching over it there. "Have a good look at this bolt," he said to M. de Presles. "Is there anything unusual about it?"
"No," said the magistrate.
"Yes, there is," said Juve; "the slide-bolt is out, as when the bolt is fastened, but the socket into which the slide-bolt slips to fasten the door to the wall is intact. If the bolt really had been forced, the socket would have been wrenched away too." Juve next asked M. de Presles to look closely at the screws that were wrenched halfway out of the door. "Do you see anything on those?"
The magistrate pointed to their heads.
"There are tiny scratches on them," he said, rather hesitatingly, for in his inmost heart he knew the detective's real superiority over himself, "and from those I must infer that the screws have not been wrenched out by the pressure exerted on the bolt, but really unscrewed, and therefore——"
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