They all turned to Rouletabille.
The reporter replied, affecting a coolness that perhaps he did not entirely feel:
“I am able to state to you, as I already have before Monsieur the Prefect of Police, that one, and only one, person has left the traces of his various climbings on the wall and on the balcony.”
“Idiot!” interrupted Natacha, with a passionate disdain for the young man. “And that satisfies you?”
The general roughly seized the reporter’s wrist:
“Listen to me, monsieur. A man came here this night. That concerns only me. No one has any right to be astonished excepting myself. I make it my own affair, an affair between my daughter and me. But you, you have just told us that you are sure that man is an assassin. Then, you see, that calls for something else. Proofs are necessary, and I want the proofs at once. You speak of traces; very well, we will go and examine those traces together. And I wish for your sake, monsieur, that I shall be as convinced by them as you are.”
Rouletabille quietly disengaged his wrist and replied with perfect calm:
“Now, monsieur, I am no longer able to prove anything to you.”
“Why?”
“Because the ladders of the police agents have wiped out all my proofs, monsieur.