But M. Perissard knew the danger of that system of examination as well as did the President.
"I know nothing about it at all, M. the President!" he declared earnestly. "I know absolutely nothing! And I cannot understand----"
"Did you know Laroque?" interrupted the judge, abruptly. M. Perissard shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other.
"I used to know him years ago in Paris," he admitted, with a fine air of candor. "About six months ago I received a letter from him asking for work. I offered him a place in my office, and I went to see him when he arrived. That's all!"
Something familiar in the sound of his voice brought Floriot out of the stupor that succeeded the agony he had suffered. He raised his haggard face from his hands and met M. Perissard's eyes fixed upon him. He recognized him at once.
"Did you come from Paris to Bordeaux on purpose to see him?" pursued the examiner.
"No, M. the President, I had to come to Bordeaux to start a branch of my Paris house here."
"Is that the reason of your coming here to-day?"
M. Perissard paused and fixed his glance slowly and meaningly on the President of the Toulouse Court, over the judge's shoulder.
"No, M. the President," he said with deliberation. "I came to Bordeaux on a special matter of business, the business of one of my clients--a very delicate affair! It concerns the honor of a well-known family, and I hope to carry it through successfully. I am honorably known in my profession, and my clients know that they can always reckon_--always_ reckon, I repeat--on my entire discretion!"
"What did you say to Laroque in the course of your conversation with him?" continued the President.
"Nothing much, nothing much!" M. Perissard assured him, with an offhand gesture. "It was a business talk, in which I gave him a few general instructions about the work of my office. That is all!"
"You do not know anything about the shooting?"
"Not a thing, M. the President!" was the emphatic reply.
M. Perissard turned and gave Jacqueline a long and careful scrutiny, as if he were not certain that he had ever seen her before.
"I saw her with Laroque," he said at last, "but I do not know who she is."
"You may----" began the President and stopped with a start. The prisoner was slowly rising. Her body was tense, and she leaned forward out of the dock with one rigid arm pointing at Perissard. With the black garb, livid face, and burning eyes and the clawlike hand pointing at the witness--whose fat pink cheeks had suddenly paled--she was like some uncanny sibyl about to launch a curse.