“Indeed, gentlemen, indeed—­”

“You were drinking with this maid at the buffet at Laroche.  You had more drink with her, or from her hands, afterwards in the car.”

“No, gentlemen, that is not so.  I could not—­she was not in the car.”

“We know better.  You cannot deceive us.  You were her accomplice, and the accomplice of her mistress, also, I have no doubt.”

“I declare solemnly that I am quite innocent of all this.  I hardly remember what happened at Laroche or after.  I do not deny the drink at the buffet.  It was very nasty, I thought, and could not tell why, nor why I could not hold my head up when I got back to the car.”

“You went off to sleep at once?  Is that what you pretend?”

“It must have been so.  Yes.  Then I know nothing more, not till I was aroused.”

And beyond this, a tale to which he stuck with undeviating persistence, they could elicit nothing.

“He is either too clever for us or an absolute idiot and fool,” said the Judge, wearily, at last, when Groote had gone out.  “We had better commit him to Mazas and hold him there in solitary confinement under our hands.  After a day or two of that he may be less difficult.”

“It is quite clear he was drugged, that the maid put opium or laudanum into his drink at Laroche.”

“And enough of it apparently, for he says he went off to sleep directly he returned to the car,” the Judge remarked.

“He says so.  But he must have had a second dose, or why was the vial found on the ground by his seat?” asked the Chief, thoughtfully, as much of himself as of the others.

“I cannot believe in a second dose.  How was it administered—­by whom?  It was laudanum, and could only be given in a drink.  He says he had no second drink.  And by whom?  The maid?  He says he did not see the maid again.”

“Pardon me, M. le Juge, but do you not give too much credibility to the porter?  For me, his evidence is tainted, and I hardly believe a word of it.  Did he not tell me at first he had not seen this maid after Amberieux at 8 P.M.?  Now he admits that he was drinking with her at the buffet at Laroche.  It is all a tissue of lies, his losing the pocket-book and his papers too.  There is something to conceal.  Even his sleepiness, his stupidity, are likely to have been assumed.”

“I do not think he is acting; he has not the ability to deceive us like that.”

“Well, then, what if the Countess took him the second drink?”

“Oh! oh!  That is the purest conjecture.  There is nothing whatever to suggest or support that.”

“Then how explain the finding of the vial near the porter’s seat?”

“May it not have been dropped there on purpose?” put in the Commissary, with another flash of intelligence.

“On purpose?” queried the detective, crossly, foreseeing an answer that would not please him.

“On purpose to bring suspicion on the lady?”