Moira looked up at the dark stain upon the floor, the terrible mannikin, and then rose. There were tears in her voice as she gave the Juge d'Instruction her hand in gratitude.
"Ah, thanks, Monsieur, you are very kind. If it will not trouble you——"
And leaving the theater of her life's drama to the solitary policeman on guard, she followed the charitable Monsieur Simon down the stair.
Monsieur Matthieu had already disappeared.
CHAPTER XXV
CONCLUSION
Jim Horton passed the night pacing the floor of his prison, and his interrogation by Monsieur Simon, the Juge d'Instruction, with the assistance of the Commissaire de Police in the morning gave him little hope of release. The examination was severe, but his inquisitors had not been able, of course, to shake his testimony and had left his cell more puzzled than when they had entered it. But he had sense enough to see that unless it were proven possible for some one to have been in the studio to commit the murder all the evidence must point to him. And yet he could not help them, nor could he suggest a line of investigation. He was still completely in the dark about the whole tragic affair and could scarcely blame them for their uncompromising attitude toward himself—and poor Piquette—toward her also. He sat upon the edge of his cot for hours after the examination, his head in his hands, trying to evolve some possible explanation of the mystery.
A more encouraging affair was the visit in the late afternoon of a captain of the regular army of the United States, representing the Judge Advocate General's office, who interviewed him in the presence of an officer of the Prefet de Police. And in the course of this investigation Jim Horton learned of Harry's second defection from the army which had resulted in his horrible death.
Captain Waring questioned shrewdly, but Jim Horton now needed no encouragement or threat to reveal the whole truth, for, whatever happened to him at the hands of the Prefet de Police, he knew that there was nothing left for him but to throw himself upon the mercy of the Army officials. And so he told the whole story, from the moment when as Corporal of Engineers, he had heard the Infantry Major's instructions to his brother, of his meeting with Harry, of his effort to save his brother's name and position by attempting to carry out the Major's orders, the changing of uniforms, the fight at Boissière Wood, the hospital, and the events that had followed in Paris, leaving out what references he could to Harry's wife, and palliating where he could his brother's offenses against the military law.
From sternness, he saw Captain Waring's expression change to interest, from interest to sympathy, and to Horton's surprise, when the officer finished taking the testimony, he extended his hand frankly.