M. Lecoq had recourse to the portrait in the lozenge-box.  It was more than a glance, it was a confidence.  He evidently said something to the dear defunct, which he dared not say aloud.

“I see that Guespin is seriously compromised,” resumed he.  “Why didn’t he want to tell where he passed the night?  But, then, public opinion is against him, and I naturally distrust that.”

The detective stood alone in the middle of the room, the rest, at his request, remained at the threshold, and looking keenly about him, searched for some explanation of the frightful disorder of the apartment.

“Fools!” cried he, in an irritated tone, “double brutes!  Because they murder people so as to rob them, is no reason why they should break everything in the house.  Sharp folks don’t smash up furniture; they carry pretty picklocks, which work well and make no noise.  Idiots! one would say—­”

He stopped with his mouth wide open.

“Eh!  Not so bungling, after all, perhaps.”

The witnesses of this scene remained motionless at the door, following, with an interest mingled with surprise, the detective’s movements.

Kneeling down, he passed his flat palm over the thick carpet, among the broken porcelain.

“It’s damp; very damp.  The tea was not all drunk, it seems, when the cups were broken.”

“Some tea might have remained in the teapot,” suggested Plantat.

“I know it,” answered M. Lecoq, “just what I was going to say.  So that this dampness cannot tell us the exact moment when the crime was committed.”

“But the clock does, and very exactly,” interrupted the mayor.

“The mayor,” said M. Domini, “in his notes, well explains that the movements of the clock stopped when it fell.”

“But see here,” said M. Plantat, “it was the odd hour marked by that clock that struck me.  The hands point to twenty minutes past three; yet we know that the countess was fully dressed, when she was struck.  Was she up taking tea at three in the morning?  It’s hardly probable.”

“I, too, was struck with that circumstance,” returned M. Lecoq, “and that’s why I said, ‘not so stupid!’ Well, let’s see.”

He lifted the clock with great care, and replaced it on the mantel, being cautious to set it exactly upright.  The hands continued to point to twenty minutes past three.

“Twenty past three!” muttered he, while slipping a little wedge under the stand.  “People don’t take tea at that hour.  Still less common is it that people are murdered at daylight.”

He opened the clock-case with some difficulty, and pushed the longer hand to the figure of half-past three.

The clock struck eleven!

“Good,” cried M. Lecoq, triumphantly.  “That is the truth!” and drawing the lozenge-box from his pocket, he excitedly crushed a lozenge between his teeth.

The simplicity of this discovery surprised the spectators; the idea of trying the clock in this way had occurred to no one.  M. Courtois, especially, was bewildered.