"How about this, Groener?" questioned the judge. "Do you admit having had a struggle with Paul Coquenil one night on the street?"
"No."
"What made that mark on your leg?"
"I—I was bitten by a dog."
"It's a wonder you didn't shoot the dog," flashed the detective.
"What do you mean?" retorted the other.
Coquenil bent close, black wrath burning in his deep-set eyes, and spoke three words that came to him by lightning intuition, three simple words that, nevertheless, seemed to smite the prisoner with sudden fear: "Oh, nothing, Raoul!"
So evident was the prisoner's emotion that Hauteville turned for an explanation to the detective, who said something under his breath.
"Very strange! Very important!" reflected the magistrate. Then to the accused: "In the morning we'll have that wound studied by experts who will tell us whether it was made by a dog or a man. Now I want you to put on the things that were in that bag."
For the first time a sense of his humiliation seemed to possess the prisoner. He clinched his hands fiercely and a wave of uncontrollable anger swept over him.