“There’s a fellow,” whispered he to the doctor, “who knows what he’s about.”

“Ergo,” resumed M. Lecoq (who knew Latin), “we have here, not brutes, as I thought at first, but rascals who looked beyond the end of their knife.  They intended to put us off the scent, by deceiving us as to the hour.”

“I don’t see their object very clearly,” said M. Courtois, timidly.

“Yet it is easy to see it,” answered M. Domini.  “Was it not for their interest to make it appear that the crime was committed after the last train for Paris had left?  Guespin, leaving his companions at the Lyons station at nine, might have reached here at ten, murdered the count and countess, seized the money which he knew to be in the count’s possession, and returned to Paris by the last train.”

“These conjectures are very shrewd,” interposed M. Plantat; “but how is it that Guespin did not rejoin his comrades in the Batignolles?  For in that way, to a certain degree, he might have provided a kind of alibi.”

Dr. Gendron had been sitting on the only unbroken chair in the chamber, reflecting on Plantat’s sudden embarrassment, when he had spoken of Robelot the bone-setter.  The remarks of the judge drew him from his revery; he got up, and said: 

“There is another point; putting forward the time was perhaps useful to Guespin, but it would greatly damage Bertaud, his accomplice.”

“But,” answered M. Domini, “it might be that Bertaud was not consulted.  As to Guespin, he had no doubt good reasons for not returning to the wedding.  His restlessness, after such a deed, would possibly have betrayed him.”

M. Lecoq had not thought fit to speak as yet.  Like a doctor at a sick bedside, he wanted to be sure of his diagnosis.  He had returned to the mantel, and again pushed forward the hands of the clock.  It sounded, successively, half-past eleven, then twelve, then half-past twelve, then one.

As he moved the hands, he kept muttering: 

“Apprentices—­chance brigands!  You are malicious, parbleu, but you don’t think of everything.  You give a push to the hands, but don’t remember to put the striking in harmony with them.  Then comes along a detective, an old rat who knows things, and the dodge is discovered.”

M. Domini and Plantat held their tongues.  M. Lecoq walked up to them.

“Monsieur the Judge,” said he, “is perhaps now convinced that the deed was done at half-past ten.”

“Unless,” interrupted M. Plantat, “the machinery of the clock has been out of order.”

“That often happens,” added M. Courtois.  “The clock in my drawing-room is in such a state that I never know the time of day.”

M. Lecoq reflected.

“It is possible,” said he, “that Monsieur Plantat is right.  The probability is in favor of my theory; but probability, in such an affair, is not sufficient; we must have certainty.  There happily remains a mode of testing the matter—­the bed; I’ll wager it is rumpled up.”  Then addressing the mayor, “I shall need a servant to lend me a hand.”