As I paused myself to contemplate the attitudes of the two, I lost my ground of vantage, for when I again spoke to the man, he too was more composed and ready to reply with caution.  Doubtless he was influenced by Miss Lloyd’s demeanor, for he imitatively assumed a receptive air.

“Where did you get the transfer?” I went on.

“On the trolley, sir; the main line.”

“To be used on the Branch Line through West Sedgwick?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why did you not use it?”

“As I tell you, sir, and as I tell monsieur, the coroner, I have spend that evening with a young lady.  We went for a trolley ride, and as we returned I take a transfer for myself, but not for her, as she live near where we alight.”

“Oh, you left the main line and took the young lady home, intending then yourself to come by trolley through West Sedgwick?”

“Yes, sir; it was just that way.”

At this point Louis seemed to forget his embarrassment, his gaze strayed away, and a happy expression came into his eyes.  I felt sure I was reading his volatile French nature aright, when I assumed his mind had turned back to the pleasant evening he had spent with his young lady acquaintance.  Somehow this went far to convince me of the fellow’s innocence for it was quite evident the murder and its mystery were not uppermost in his thoughts at that moment.  But my next question brought him beck to realization of the present situation.

“And why didn’t you use your transfer?”

“Only that the night, he was so pleasant, I desired to walk.”

“And so you walked through the village, holding, perhaps, the transfer in your hand?”

“I think, yes; but I do not remember the transfer in my hand, though he may have been there.”

And now the man’s unquiet had returned.  His lips twitched and his dark eyes rolled about, as he endeavored in vain to look anywhere but at Miss Lloyd.  She, too, was controlling herself by a visible effort.

Anxious to bring the matter to a crisis, I said at once, and directly: 

“And then you entered the gates of this place, you walked to the house, you walked around the house to the back by way of the path which leads around by the library veranda, and you accidentally dropped your transfer near the veranda step.”

I spoke quietly enough, but Louis immediately burst into voluble denial.

“No, no!” he exclaimed; “I do not go round by the office, I go the other side of the house.  I have tell you so many times.”

“But I myself picked up your transfer near the office veranda.”

“Then he blow there.  The wind blow that night, oh, something fearful!  He blow the paper around the house, I think.”

“I don’t think so,” I retorted; “I think you went around the house that way, I think you paused at the office window—­”

Just here I made a dramatic pause myself, hoping thus to appeal to the emotional nature of my victim.  And I succeeded.  Louis almost shrieked as he pressed his hands against his eyes, and cried out:  “No! no!  I tell you I did not go round that way!  I go round the other way, and the wind—­the wind, he blow my transfer all about!”