"Yes, I do," the magistrate exclaimed, "and I am all the more glad to hear of it, since I am to have both the men here now. Shall I have Muller in first?"
"So you still refuse to confess?" said the magistrate at last. "You still maintain that your--extraordinary--order to let the red-haired waiter out, was given in good faith?"
"Yes, yes, yes, sir," the night watchman answered. "That very evening a new servant had joined the staff. I had not even set eyes on him. When I saw this--stranger----, I took him to be the servant who had been engaged the day before, and I told them to open the door for him. That is the real truth."
"We are only charging you with complicity," the magistrate went on, "for the man who touched the electric wires burned his hand; that is a strong point in your favour. And you also say that if the thief were put before you, you could recognise him?"
"Good!" said M. Fuselier, and he signed to his clerk to call in another personage.
The clerk understood, and Gurn was brought in between two municipal guards, and was followed by the young licentiate in law, Maître Roger de Seras, who represented his leader at most of these preliminary examinations. As Gurn came in, with the light from the window falling full on his face, M. Fuselier gave a curt order.
"Muller, turn round and look at this man!"
Muller obeyed, and surveyed with some bewilderment, and without the least comprehension, the bold head and the well-built, muscular frame of Lord Beltham's murderer. Gurn did not flinch.
"Do you recognise that man?" the magistrate demanded.
Muller ransacked his brains and looked again at Gurn, then shook his head.
"Gurn, open your right hand," the magistrate ordered. "Show it," and he turned again to Muller. "The man before you seems to have been burned in the palm of the hand, as that scar shows. Can you not remember having seen that man at the Royal Palace Hotel?"
"On my honour, sir, although it would be to my interest to recognise him, I am bound to acknowledge that I really and truly don't."
M. Fuselier had a brief conversation aside with Juve, and then, the detective appearing to agree with him, turned once more to the night watchman.
"Muller," he said, "the court is pleased with your frankness. You will be set free provisionally, but you are to hold yourself at the disposal of the court of enquiry," and he signed to the municipal guards to lead the gratefully protesting man away.