“All my anticipations,” continued Claire, “were realised.  I retired during the evening, and I went into the garden a little before the appointed time.  I had procured the key of the little door; and I at once tried it.  Unfortunately, I could not make it turn, the lock was so rusty.  I exerted all my strength in vain.  I was in despair, when nine o’clock struck.  At the third stroke, Albert knocked.  I told him of the accident; and I threw him the key, that he might try and unlock the door.  He tried, but without success.  I then begged him to postpone our interview.  He replied that it was impossible, that what he had to say admitted of no delay; that, during three days he had hesitated about confiding in me, and had suffered martyrdom, and that he could endure it no longer.  We were speaking, you must understand, through the door.  At last, he declared that he would climb over the wall.  I begged him not to do so, fearing an accident.  The wall is very high, as you know; the top is covered with pieces of broken glass, and the acacia branches stretch out above like a hedge.  But he laughed at my fears, and said that, unless I absolutely forbade him to do so, he was going to attempt to scale the wall.  I dared not say no; and he risked it.  I was very frightened, and trembled like a leaf.  Fortunately, he is very active, and got over without hurting himself.  He had come, sir, to tell me of the misfortune which had befallen him.  We first of all sat down upon the little seat you know of, in front of the grove; then, as the rain was falling, we took shelter in the summer house.  It was past midnight when Albert left me, quieted and almost gay.  He went back in the same manner, only with less danger, because I made him use the gardener’s ladder, which I laid down alongside the wall when he had reached the other side.”

This account, given in the simplest and most natural manner, puzzled M. Daburon.  What was he to think?

“Mademoiselle,” he asked, “had the rain commenced to fall when M. Albert climbed over the wall?”

“No, sir, the first drops fell when we were on the seat.  I recollect it very well, because he opened his umbrella, and I thought of Paul and Virginia.”

“Excuse me a minute, mademoiselle,” said the magistrate.

He sat down at his desk, and rapidly wrote two letters.  In the first, he gave orders for Albert to be brought at once to his office in the Palais de Justice.  In the second, he directed a detective to go immediately to the Faubourg St. Germain to the d’Arlange house, and examine the wall at the bottom of the garden, and make a note of any marks of its having been scaled, if any such existed.  He explained that the wall had been climbed twice, both before and during the rain; consequently the marks of the going and returning would be different from each other.

He enjoined upon the detective to proceed with the utmost caution, and to invent a plausible pretext which would explain his investigations.