“That is extraordinary,” said he.  “But of course it is possible.  In any case, it is still only an hypothesis.

“And so long as it could be an hypothesis that no one thought of, it could be just that, Sire.  But if I am here, it is because I have the proof that that hypothesis corresponds to the reality.  That necessary proof of Natacha’s innocence, Your Majesty, I have found with the rope around my neck.  Ah, I tell you it was time!  What has hindered us hitherto, I do not say to realize, but even to think, of that hypothesis?  Simply that we thought the illness of the general had commenced before the absorption of the ipecac, since Matrena Petrovna had been obliged to go for it to her medicine-closet after his illness commenced, in order to counteract the poison of which she also appeared to be the victim.

“But, if I acquire proof that Matrena Petrovna had the ipecac at hand before the sickness, my hypothesis of pretense at poisoning has irresistible force.  Because, if it was not to use it before, why did she have it with her before?  And if it was not that she wished to hide the fact that she had used it before, why did she wish to make believe that she went to find it afterwards?

“Then, in order to show Natacha’s innocence, here is what must be proved:  that Matrena Petrovna had the ipecac on her, even when she went to look for it.”

“Young Rouletabille, I hardly breathe,” said the Tsar.

“Breathe, Sire.  The proof is here.  Matrena Petrovna necessarily had the ipecac on her, because after the sickness she had not the time for going to find it.  Do you understand, Sire?  Between the moment when she fled from the kiosk and when she returned there, she had not the actual time to go to her medicine-closet to find the ipecac.”

“How have you been able to compute the time?” asked the Emperor.

“Sire, the Lord God directed, Who made me admire Feodor Feodorovitch’s watch just when we went to read, and to read on the dial of that watch two minutes to the hour, and the Lord God directed yet, Who, after the scene of the poison, at the time Matrena returned carrying the ipecac publicly, made the hour strike from that watch in the general’s pocket.

“Two minutes.  It was impossible for Matrena to have covered that distance in two minutes.  She could only have entered the deserted datcha and left it again instantly.  She had not taken the trouble to mount to the floor above, where, she told us and repeated when she returned, the ipecac was in the medicine-closet.  She lied!  And if she lied, all is explained.

“It was the striking of a watch, Sire, with a striking apparatus and a sound like the general’s, there in the quarters of the revolutionaries, that roused my memory and indicated to me in a second this argument of the time.