"I ask your pardon in my turn, Bernardet," replied M. Ginory, a little quizzically. "I have also studied the question, which seems to me a curious"——
"Have you photographed any yourself, M. Ginory?"
"No."
"Ah! There is where the proof is."
"But in 1877, the very learned Doyen of the Academy of Medicine, M. Brouardel, whose great wisdom, and whose sovereign opinion was law, one of those men who is an honor to his country, told me that when he was in Heidelberg he had heard Professor Kuhne say that he had studied this same question; he had made impressions of the retina of the eye in the following cases: After the death of a dog or a wolf, he had taken out the eye and replaced it with the back part of the eye in front; then he took a very strong light and placed it in front of the eye and between the eye and the light he placed a small grating. This grating, after an exposure of a quarter of an hour, was visible upon the retina. But those are very different experiments from the ones one hears of in America."
"They could see the bars in the grating? If that was visible, why could not the visage of the murderer be found there?"
"Eh! Other experiments have been attempted, even after those of which Professor Kuhne told our compatriot. Every one, you understand, has borne only negative results, and M. Brouardel could tell you, better than I, that in the physiological and oculistic treatises, published during the last ten years, no allusion has been made to the preservation of the image on the retina after death. It is an affair classé, Bernardet."
"Ah! Monsieur, yet"—and the police officer hesitated. Shaking his head, he again repeated: "Yet—yet!"
"You are not convinced?"
"No, Monsieur Ginory, and shall I tell you why? You, yourself, in spite of the testimony of illustrious savants, still doubt. I pray you to pardon me, but I see it in your eyes."