"I haven't any. The more I think, the more astounding it seems. I couldn't believe, unless I had seen all these things with my own eyes."
"And you, Madame?" he asked at last in French, turning to Piquette.
"What Monsieur tells is the truth, Monsieur le Commissaire. I swear."
Monsieur Matthieu laughed.
"Come now. What you two ask me to think is beyond belief. I come to this room and find a man murdered by a dastardly blow dealt by a man of great muscular force." Here he ran a careless glance up and down Jim Horton's long figure. "The only door by which he could have escaped is locked, exit by the window is impossible, and you and Madame guard the stairs until the crowd gathers. Do you think you will get me to believe that the murderer flew up the chimney?"
"I don't ask you to believe anything," said Jim, trying to keep his nerve.
"But I must believe the evidence of my observation. There is no way in which the man could have passed you on the stair?"
"None," said Jim helplessly, "until I came up with the policeman no one went down."
"That is true," added Piquette. "Monsieur 'Orton was armed. No one could have passed him."
Here the Commissaire was puzzled, for what had seemed clearer a moment ago was lost in the frankness of this confession.