“Do you suspect a female hand, then?” asked the General, evidently much interested and impressed.

“That is so, although I am exceeding my duty in revealing this.”

“And you are satisfied that this lady, a refined, delicate person in the best society, of the highest character,—­believe me, I know that to be the case,—­whom you yet suspect of an atrocious crime, was the only female in the car?”

“Obviously.  Who else?  What other woman could possibly have been in the car?  No one got in at Laroche; the train never stopped till it reached Paris.”

“On that last point at least you are quite mistaken, I assure you.  Why not upon the other also?”

“The train stopped?” interjected the detective.  “Why has no one told us that?”

“Possibly because you never asked.  But it is nevertheless the fact.  Verify it.  Every one will tell you the same.”

The detective himself hurried to the door and called in the porter.  He was within his rights, of course, but the action showed distrust, at which the General only smiled, but he laughed outright when the still stupid and half-dazed porter, of course, corroborated the statement at once.

“At whose instance was the train pulled up?” asked the detective, and the Judge nodded his head approvingly.

To know that would fix fresh suspicion.

But the porter could not answer the question.

Some one had rung the alarm-bell—­so at least the conductor had declared; otherwise they should not have stopped.  Yet he, the porter, had not done so, nor did any passenger come forward to admit giving the signal.  But there had been a halt.  Yes, assuredly.

“This is a new light,” the Judge confessed.  “Do you draw any conclusion from it?” he went on to ask the General.

“That is surely your business.  I have only elicited the fact to disprove your theory.  But if you wish, I will tell you how it strikes me.”

The Judge bowed assent.

“The bare fact that the train was halted would mean little.  That would be the natural act of a timid or excitable person involved indirectly in such a catastrophe.  But to disavow the act starts suspicion.  The fair inference is that there was some reason, an unavowable reason, for halting the train.”

“And that reason would be—­”

“You must see it without my assistance, surely!  Why, what else but to afford some one an opportunity to leave the car.”

“But how could that be?  You would have seen that person, some of you, especially at such a critical time.  The aisle would be full of people, both exits were thus practically overlooked.”

“My idea is—­it is only an idea, understand—­that the person had already left the car—­that is to say, the interior of the car.”

“Escaped how?  Where?  What do you mean?”

“Escaped through the open window of the compartment where you found the murdered man.”