Was the man jesting, or was he in earnest?  It was so hard to decide, that M. Segmuller and Lecoq were equally in doubt.  As for Goguet, the smiling clerk, he chuckled to himself as his pen ran over the paper.

“Enough,” interrupted the magistrate.  “How old are you?”

“Forty-four or forty-five years of age.”

“Where were you born?”

“In Brittany, probably.”

M. Segmuller thought he could detect a hidden vein of irony in this reply.

“I warn you,” said he, severely, “that if you go on in this way your chances of recovering your liberty will be greatly compromised.  Each of your answers is a breach of propriety.”

As the supposed murderer heard these words, an expression of mingled distress and anxiety was apparent in his face.  “Ah!  I meant no offense, sir,” he sighed.  “You questioned me, and I replied.  You will see that I have spoken the truth, if you will allow me to recount the history of the whole affair.”

“When the prisoner speaks, the prosecution is enlightened,” so runs an old proverb frequently quoted at the Palais de Justice.  It does, indeed, seem almost impossible for a culprit to say more than a few words in an investigating magistrate’s presence, without betraying his intentions or his thoughts; without, in short, revealing more or less of the secret he is endeavoring to conceal.  All criminals, even the most simple-minded, understand this, and those who are shrewd prove remarkably reticent.  Confining themselves to the few facts upon which they have founded their defense, they are careful not to travel any further unless absolutely compelled to do so, and even then they only speak with the utmost caution.  When questioned, they reply, of course, but always briefly; and they are very sparing of details.

In the present instance, however, the prisoner was prodigal of words.  He did not seem to think that there was any danger of his being the medium of accomplishing his own decapitation.  He did not hesitate like those who are afraid of misplacing a word of the romance they are substituting for the truth.  Under other circumstances, this fact would have been a strong argument in his favor.

“You may tell your own story, then,” said M. Segmuller in answer to the prisoner’s indirect request.

The presumed murderer did not try to hide the satisfaction he experienced at thus being allowed to plead his own cause, in his own way.  His eyes sparkled and his nostrils dilated as if with pleasure.  He sat himself dawn, threw his head back, passed his tongue over his lips as if to moisten them, and said:  “Am I to understand that you wish to hear my history?”

“Yes.”