Bernardet, at this moment, interrupted him by taking his hat from him without saying a word, and Pradès cast a very angry look at the little man.
M. Ginory understood Bernardet's move and approved with a smile. He looked in the inside of the sombrero which Bernardet handed to him.
The hat bore the address of Gordon, Smithson & Co., Berner Street, London.
"But, after all," thought the Magistrate, "Buenos Ayres is one of the markets for English goods."
"That is a hat bought at Sydney," Pradès (who had understood) explained.
Before the bold, decided, almost violent affirmations which Mme. Colard made that this was certainly the seller of the portrait, the young man lost countenance a little. He kept saying over and over: "You deceive yourself. Madame, I have never spoken to you, I have never seen you."
When M. Ginory asked her if she still persisted in saying that this was the man who had sold her the picture, she said:
"Do I still persist? With my neck under the guillotine I would persist," and she kept repeating: "I am sure of it! I am sure of it!"
This preliminary examination brought about no decisive result. It was certain that, if this portrait had been in the possession of this young man and been sold by him, that he, Charles Pradès, was an accomplice of Dantin's, if not the author of the crime. They ought, then, to be brought face to face, and, possibly, this might bring about an immediate result. And why not have this meeting take place at once, before Pradès was sent where Dantin was, at Mazas?
M. Ginory, who had uttered this word "Mazas," noticed the expression of terror which flashed across and suddenly transfigured the young man's face.