"It's a lie!" yelled the prisoner.
"All this terror and anguish caused a violent mental disturbance in the girl and resulted in a failure of her memory. When she came out of the fire it was as if a curtain had fallen over her past life, she had lost the sense of her own personality, she did not know her own name, she was helpless, you could do as you pleased with her. And she was a great heiress! If she lived, she inherited her mother's fortune; if she died, this fortune reverted to you. So shrinking, perhaps, from the actual killing of this girl, you destroyed her identity; you gave it out that she, too, had perished in the flames and you proceeded to enjoy her stolen fortune while she sold candles in Notre-Dame church."
"You have no proof of it!" shouted Groener.
"No? What is this?" and he signaled the operator, whereupon the lights went down and the picture of Alice and the widow appeared again. "There is the girl whom you have wronged and defrauded. Now watch the woman, your Brussels accomplice, watch her carefully—carefully," he motioned to the operator and the smooth young widow faded gradually, while the face and form of another woman took her place beside the girl. "Now we have the picture as it was before you falsified it. Do you recognize this face?"
"No," answered the prisoner, but his heart was pounding.
"It is your wife. Look!"
Under the picture came the inscription: "To my dear husband Raoul with the love of Margaret and her little Mary."
"I wish we had the dial on him now," whispered Duprat to M. Paul.
"There are your two victims!" accused the magistrate. "Mary and Margaret! How long do you suppose it will take us to identify them among the Charity Bazaar unfortunates? It is a matter of a few hours' record searching. What must we look for? A rich American lady who married a Frenchman. Her name is Margaret. She had a daughter named Mary. The Frenchman's name is Raoul and he probably has a title. We have, also, the lady's photograph and the daughter's photograph and a specimen of the lady's handwriting. Could anything be simpler? The first authority we meet on noble fortune hunters will tell us all about it. And then, M. Adolf Groener, we shall know whether it is a, marquis or a duke whose name must be added to the list of distinguished assassins."
He paused for a reply, but none came. The guard moved suddenly in the shadows and called for help.