"It's easier to think him innocent than guilty," answered the detective.
"Easier?"
"If he is guilty we must grant him an extraordinary double personality. The amiable lover becomes a desperate criminal able to conceive and carry out the most intricate murder of our time. I don't believe it. If he is guilty he must have had the key to that alleyway door. How did he get it? He must have known, that the 'tall blonde' who had engaged Number Seven would not occupy it. How did he know that? And he must have relations with the man who met me on the Champs Elysées. How could that be? Remember, he's a poor devil of a foreigner living in a Latin-Quarter attic. The thing isn't reasonable."
"But the pistol?"
"The pistol may not really be his. Gibelin's whole story needs looking into."
The judge nodded. "Of course. I leave that to you. Still, I shall feel better satisfied when we have compared the soles of his boots with the plaster casts of those alleyway footprints."
"So shall I," said Coquenil. "Suppose I see the workman who is finishing the casts?" he suggested; "it won't take long, and perhaps I can bring them back with me."
"Excellent," approved Hauteville, and he bowed with grave friendliness as the detective left the room.
Then, for nearly an hour, the judge buried himself in the details of this case, turning his trained mind, with absorbed concentration, upon the papers at hand, reviewing the evidence, comparing the various reports and opinions, and, in the light of clear reason, searching for a plausible theory of the crime. He also began notes of questions that he wished to ask Kittredge, and was deep in these when the clerk entered to inform him that Coquenil and Gibelin had returned.
"Let them come in at once," directed Hauteville, and presently the two detectives were again before him.