“I have seen him only once; but I know his mother, who was my patient, and it is at her instigation that I decided to make this explanation to you.”
“Without doubt, it has its value, but I must tell you that it tends in no way to destroy our hypothesis.”
“But if it has no foundation?”
“I must tell you that you are negative, doctor, and not suggestive. We have a criminal and you have not. Do you see one?”
Saniel thought that the judge looked at him with a disagreeable persistency.
“No,” he said, sharply.
Then rising, he said, more calmly:
“That is not in my line.”
He had nothing to do but to retire, which he did; and on passing through the vestibule he said to himself that the magistrate was right. He believed that he held a criminal. Why should he let him go?
As for him, he had done what he could.