Lecoq’s apprehension was based on fact, as M, Segmuller himself perceived the instant Toinon the Virtuous again set foot in his office.  The poor creature seemed nearly heartbroken, and it was evident she would have given her life to retract the words that had escaped her when first questioned by Lecoq.  Polyte’s threat had aroused the most sinister apprehensions in her mind.  Not understanding his connection with the affair, she asked herself if her testimony might not prove his death-warrant.  Accordingly, she answered all M. Segmuller’s questions with “no” or “I don’t know”; and retracted everything she had previously stated to Lecoq.  She swore that she had been misunderstood, that her words had been misconstrued; and vowed on her mother’s memory, that she had never heard the name of Lacheneur before.  At last, she burst into wild, despairing sobs, and pressed her frightened child against her breast.

What could be done to overcome this foolish obstinacy, as blind and unreasoning as a brute’s?  M. Segmuller hesitated.  “You may retire, my good woman,” said he kindly, after a moment’s pause, “but remember that your strange silence injures your husband far more than anything you could say.”

She left the room—­or rather she rushed wildly from it as though only too eager to escape—­and the magistrate and the detective exchanged glances of dismay and consternation.

“I said so before,” thought Goguet, “the prisoner knows what he’s about.  I would be willing to bet a hundred to one in his favor.”

A French investigating magistrate is possessed of almost unlimited powers.  No one can hamper him, no one can give him orders.  The entire police force is at his disposal.  One word from him and twenty agents, or a hundred if need be, search Paris, ransack France, or explore Europe.  If there be any one whom he believes able to throw light upon an obscure point, he simply sends an order to that person to appear before him, and the man must come even if he lives a hundred leagues away.

Such is the magistrate, such are his powers.  On the other hand, the prisoner charged with a crime, but as yet un-convicted, is confined, unless his offense be of a trivial description, in what is called a “secret cell.”  He is, so to say, cut off from the number of the living.  He knows nothing of what may be going on in the world outside.  He can not tell what witnesses may have been called, or what they may have said, and in his uncertainty he asks himself again and again how far the prosecution has been able to establish the charges against him.

Such is the prisoner’s position, and yet despite the fact that the two adversaries are so unequally armed, the man in the secret cell not unfrequently wins the victory.  If he is sure that he has left behind him no proof of his having committed the crime; if he has no guilty antecedents to be afraid of, he can—­impregnable in a defense of absolute denial—­brave all the attacks of justice.