Meantime the official police photographer and his assistants had arrived (this was long after midnight) with special apparatus for photographing the victim and the scene of the crime.  And their work occupied two full hours owing largely to the difficult manipulation of a queer, clumsy camera that photographed the body from above as it lay on the floor.

In the intervals of these formalities the officials discussed the case with a wide variance in opinions and conclusions.  The chief of police and M. Pougeot were strong for the theory of murder, while M. Hauteville leaned toward suicide.  The doctor was undecided.

“But the shot was fired at the closest possible range,” insisted the judge; “the pistol was not a foot from the man’s head.  Isn’t that true, doctor?”

“Yes,” replied Joubert, “the eyebrows are badly singed, the skin is burned, and the face shows unmistakable powder marks.  I should say the pistol was fired not six inches from the victim.”

“Then it’s suicide,” declared the judge.  “How else account for the facts?  Martinez was a strong, active man.  He would never have allowed a murderer to get so close to him without a struggle.  But there is not the slightest sign of a struggle, no disorder in the room, no disarrangement of the man’s clothing.  It’s evidently suicide.”

“If it’s suicide,” objected Pougeot, “where is the weapon?  The man died instantly, didn’t he, doctor?”

“Undoubtedly,” agreed the doctor.

“Then the pistol must have fallen beside him or remained in his hand.  Well, where is it?”

“Ask the woman who was here.  How do you know she didn’t take it?”

“Nonsense!” put in the chief.  “Why should she take it?  To throw suspicion on herself?  Besides, I’ll show you another reason why it’s not suicide.  The man was shot through the right eye, the ball went in straight and clean, tearing its way to the brain.  Well, in the whole history of suicides, there is not one case where a man has shot himself in the eye.  Did you ever hear of such a case, doctor?”

“Never,” answered Joubert.

“A man will shoot himself in the mouth, in the temple, in the heart, anywhere, but not in the eye.  There would be an unconquerable shrinking from that.  So I say it’s murder.”

The judge shook his head.  “And the murderer?”

“Ah, that’s another question.  We must find the woman.  And we must understand the role of this American.”

“No woman ever fired that shot or planned this crime,” declared the commissary, unconsciously echoing Coquenil’s opinion.

“There’s better reason to argue that the American never did it,” retorted the judge.

“What reason?”

“The woman ran away, didn’t she?  And the American didn’t.  If he had killed this man, do you think anything would have brought him back here for that cloak and bag?”

“A good point,” nodded the chief.  “We can’t be sure of the murderer—­yet, but we can be reasonably sure it’s murder.”