“There!” cried the judge, triumphantly, leaning forward to scrutinise narrowly the effect of this hideous confrontation upon the prisoner.

To his bitter disappointment, this carefully prepared theatrical effect, so frequently practised and so often successful with French criminals, altogether failed with Gascoigne.  The Englishman certainly had started at the first sight of the corpse, but it was a natural movement of horror which might have escaped any unconcerned spectator at being brought into the presence of death in such a hideous form.  After betraying this first and not unnatural sign of emotion, Gascoigne remained perfectly cool, self-possessed, and unperturbed.

“You see your victim there; now will you confess?” cried the judge, almost passionately.

“Ledantec’s victim, not mine,” replied Gascoigne, quietly.  Then, as if in apology to himself, he added, “I could not help speaking, but I shall say nothing more.”

“He is very strong, extraordinarily strong!” cried the judge, his rage giving place to admiration at the obstinate fortitude of his prisoner.  “In all my experience”—­this was to the police and the chief custodian of the Morgue—­“I have never come across a more cold-blooded, cynical wretch; but he shall not beat me; he shall not outrage and set the law at defiance; we will bend his spirit yet.  Take him back to the Mousetrap; he shall stay there until he chooses to speak.”

With this unfair threat, which was tantamount to a sentence of unlimited imprisonment, the judge dismissed his prisoner.

Gascoigne was marched back to the cab; the police-agents ordered him to re-enter it; one of them took his seat by his side as before, the other remounted the box.  Then the cab started on its journey back to the Prefecture.

Gascoigne, silent, pre-occupied, and outwardly calm, was yet inwardly consumed with a fierce though impotent rage.  He was indignant at the shameful treatment he had received.  To be arraigned as a criminal prematurely, his guilt taken for granted on the testimony of unseen witnesses whose evidence he had no chance of rebutting—­all this, so intolerable to the spirit of British justice, revolted him and outraged his sense of fair play.

Yet what could he do?  He was without redress.  They had denied him his right of appeal to his ambassador; he was forbidden to communicate with his friends.  There seemed no hope for him, no chance of justice, no loophole of escape.

Stay!  Escape?

As the thought flashed quickly across his brain it lingered, taking practical shape.  Surely it was worth his while to make an effort, to strike one bold blow for liberty now, before it was too late!

He quickly cast up the chances for and against.  The cab was following the line of quays as before, but along the northern bank of the island, that bordering the main stream.  It was going at little better than a foot’s pace; the door next which he sat was on the side of the river.  What if he knocked his guardian senseless, striking him a couple of British blows—­one, two, straight from the shoulder—­then, flinging open the door, spring out, and over the parapet into the swift-flowing Seine?  He was an excellent swimmer; once in the water, surely he might trust to his luck!