"
While Goguet read the evidence aloud, the prisoner listened without
making any remark, but when asked to sign the document, he obstinately
refused to do so, fearing, he said, "some hidden treachery."
A moment afterward the soldiers who had escorted him to the magistrate's
room conducted him back to the Depot.
XIII
When the prisoner had gone, M. Segmuller sank back in his armchair,
literally exhausted. He was in that state of nervous prostration which
so often follows protracted but fruitless efforts. He had scarcely
strength enough to bathe his burning forehead and gleaming eyes with
cool, refreshing water.
This frightful examination had lasted no less than seven consecutive
hours.
The smiling clerk, who had kept his place at his desk busily writing the
whole while, now rose to his feet, glad of an opportunity to stretch his
limbs and snap his fingers, cramped by holding the pen. Still, he was
not in the least degree bored. He invariably took a semi-theatrical
interest in the dramas that were daily enacted in his presence; his
excitement being all the greater owing to the uncertainty that shrouded
the finish of the final act--a finish that only too often belied the
ordinary rules and deductions of writers for the stage.
"What a knave!" he exclaimed after vainly waiting for the magistrate or
the detective to express an opinion, "what a rascal!"
M. Segmuller ordinarily put considerable confidence in his clerk's long
experience.
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