“Not necessarily. I have often seen children pick up these things, and play with them.”
The clerk, while he made his pen fly across his paper, could not resist the temptation of making all kinds of faces. He was too well acquainted with lawyers’ tactics not to understand M. Galpin’s policy perfectly well, and to see how cunningly it was devised to make every fact strengthen the suspicion against M. de Boiscoran.
“It is a close game,” he said to himself.
The magistrate had taken a seat.
“If that is so,” he began again, “I beg you will give me an account of how you spent the evening after eight o’clock: do not hurry, consider, take your time; for your answers are of the utmost importance.”
M. de Boiscoran had so far remained quite cool; but his calmness betrayed one of those terrible storms within, which may break forth, no one knows when. This warning, and, even more so, the tone in which it was given, revolted him as a most hideous hypocrisy. And, breaking out all of a sudden, he cried,—
“After all, sir, what do you want of me? What am I accused of?”
M. Galpin did not stir. He replied,—
“You will hear it at the proper time. First answer my question, and believe me in your own interest. Answer frankly. What did you do last night?”
“How do I know? I walked about.”