“Very well, then.  This soldier, as you must recollect, wished to revenge himself on Lacheneur, who, by promising him a sum of money, had inveigled him into a conspiracy.  A conspiracy against whom?  Evidently against you; and yet you pretend that you had only arrived in Paris that evening, and that mere chance brought you to the Poivriere.  Can you reconcile such conflicting statements?”

The prisoner had the hardihood to shrug his shoulders disdainfully.  “I see the matter in an entirely different light,” said he.  “These people were plotting mischief against I don’t know whom—­and it was because I was in their way that they sought a quarrel with me, without any cause whatever.”

Skilfully as the magistrate had delivered this thrust, it had been as skilfully parried; so skilfully, indeed, that Goguet, the smiling clerk, could not conceal an approving grimace.  Besides, on principle, he always took the prisoner’s part, in a mild, Platonic way, of course.

“Let us consider the circumstances that followed your arrest,” resumed M. Segmuller.  “Why did you refuse to answer all the questions put to you?”

A gleam of real or assumed resentment shone in the prisoner’s eyes.

“This examination,” he growled, “will alone suffice to make a culprit out of an innocent man!”

“I advise you, in your own interest, to behave properly.  Those who arrested you observed that you were conversant with all the prison formalities and rules.”

“Ah! sir, haven’t I told you that I have been arrested and put in prison several times—­always on account of my papers?  I told you the truth, and you shouldn’t taunt me for having done so.”

The prisoner had dropped his mask of careless gaiety, and had assumed a surly, discontented tone.  But his troubles were by no means ended; in fact, the battle had only just begun.  Laying a tiny linen bag on his desk, M. Segmuller asked him if he recognized it.

“Perfectly!  It is the package that the governor of the Depot placed in his safe.”

The magistrate opened the bag, and poured the dust that it contained on to a sheet of paper.  “You are aware, prisoner,” said he, “that this dust comes from the mud that was sticking to your feet.  The police agent who collected it has been to the station-house where you spent the night of the murder, and has discovered that the composition of this dust is identical with that of the floor of the cell you occupied.”

The prisoner listened with gaping mouth.

“Hence,” continued the magistrate, “it was certainly at the station-house, and designedly, that you soiled your feet with that mud.  In doing so you had an object.”

“I wished—­”

“Let me finish.  Being determined to keep your identity secret, and to assume the character of a member of the lower classes—­of a mountebank, if you please—­you reflected that the care you bestow upon your person might betray you.  You foresaw the impression that would be caused when the coarse, ill-fitting boots you wore were removed, and the officials perceived your trim, clean feet, which are as well kept as your hands.  Accordingly, what did you do?  You poured some of the water that was in the pitcher in your cell on to the ground and then dabbled your feet in the mud that had thus been formed.”