“How dare you ask, Bernier? How dare you? And you acknowledge that he was in the apartment of M. and Mme. Darzac! Who, then, gained him entrance to that apartment? No one but yourself. You, the only person who had the key when the Darzacs were not there!”
Bernier arose to his feet. He was as pale as a ghost, but his look and attitude were full of dignity.
“M. Rouletabille, do you accuse me of being an accomplice of Larsan?”
“I forbid you to pronounce that name!” shouted the reporter. “You know very well that Larsan is dead—and has been dead for months!”
“For months!” echoed Bernier, ironically. “Yes, that is true—I was wrong to forget it. When one devotes oneself to his masters and permits himself to be beaten and abused for them, it is necessary to ignore everything, no matter what they may do to you. I beg your pardon, sir.”
“Listen to me, Bernier. I know that you are a brave man and I respect you. It is not your good faith that I am questioning, but I am censuring your negligence.”
“My negligence!” Bernier, as pale as his face had been, flushed crimson. “My negligence! I have not budged from my lodge—not even from the corridor. I have always worn the key in my breast pocket and I swear to you that no one entered that room—no one at all—after you were there at five o’clock, except M. and Mme. Darzac, themselves. I do not count, of course, the few moments that you and M. Sainclair were there at about six o’clock.”
“What!” exclaimed Rouletabille. “Do you want me to believe that this individual—you have forgotten his name, I think, Bernier—let us call him ‘the Man’—that the man was killed in M. Darzac’s rooms if he was not there?”
“I do not. And, furthermore, I can swear to you that he was there.”
“Yes, but how could he have been? That is what I ask you, Bernier. And you are the only one who can answer because you alone had the key in the absence of M. and Mme. Darzac. And M. Darzac never took the key with him when he left the room and no one could have gotten into the room to hide while he was there.”