*       *       *       *       *

Softly the rain patters against the window-pane. A distant clock booms out eleven strokes. Lou Arnaud raises his head. Then noiselessly he slides out of bed on the
chill wooden boarding. As in a trance he crosses the room, seizes
charcoal, and feverishly works at the blank canvas on the easel. For twenty minutes his hand never falters, then the charcoal drops from
his nerveless fingers! Groping his way with half-closed eyes back to the
bed, he falls again into a heavy, dreamless slumber. *       *       *       *       *

The early morning sun chases away the raindrops of the night before. Signs of activity are abroad in the inn; the swish of brooms; the noisy
clatter of pails. A warm aroma of coffee floats up the stairs and under
the door of number fourteen, awaking Arnaud to pleasant thoughts of
breakfast. He is partly dressed before his eye lights on the canvas he
had prepared. "_Nom de Dieu!_"

He falls back against the wall, staring stupefied at the picture before
him. It is the picture of a girl, crouching in a kneeling position, all
the agony of death showing clearly in her upturned eyes. At her throat,
cruelly, relentlessly doing their murderous work, are a pair of
hands--ugly, podgy hands, but with what power behind them! The face is the face of Jehane--a distorted, terrified Jehane! Arnaud
recoils, covering his eyes with his hands. Who could have drawn this
unspeakable thing? He looks again closely; the style is his own! There
is no mistaking those bold, black lines, that peculiar way of indicating
muscle beneath the tightly stretched skin--it _is_ his own work! Anywhere would he have known it! A knock at the door! Jean Potin enters, radiating cheerfulness. "Breakfast in your room, monsieur? We are busy this morning; I share in
the work. Permit me to move the table and the easel--_Sacré-bleu!_"

Suddenly his rosy lips grow stern. "This is Jehane. Did she sit for
you--and when? You only came last night. What devil's work is this?" "That is what I would like to find out; I know no more about it than you
yourself. When I awoke this morning the picture was there!" "Did you draw it?" suspiciously. "Yes. At least, no! Yes, I suppose I did. But I----"

Potin clenches his fist: "I will have the truth from the girl herself! There is something here I do not like!" Roughly he pushes past the
artist and mounts to Jehane's room. She is not there, neither is she at her desk. Nor yet down in the
village. They search everywhere; there is a hue and cry; people rush to
and fro. Then suddenly a shout; and a silence, a dreadful silence. Something is carried slowly into the "Loup Noir." Something that was
found huddled up in the shadow of the wall that borders the courtyard. Something with ugly purple patches on the white throat. It is Jehane, and she is dead; strangled by a pair of hands that came
from behind. The story of the picture is rapidly passed from mouth to mouth. People
look strangely at Lou Arnaud; they remember his loud, strained voice and
threatening gestures on the preceding night. Finally he is arrested on the charge of murder. *       *       *       *       *

I was the judge, gentlemen, on the occasion of the Arnaud trial. The prisoner is questioned about the picture. He knows nothing; can tell
nothing of how it came there. His fellow-artists testify to its being
his work. From them also leaks out the tale of his brother Claude, of
the latter's infatuation and ruin. No need now to explain the quarrel in
the courtyard. The accused has good reason to hate the dead girl. The Avocat for the defence does his best. The picture is produced in
court; it creates a sensation. If only Lou Arnaud could complete it--could sketch in the owner of those
merciless hands. He is handed the charcoal; again and again he tries--in
vain. The hands are not his own; but that is a small point in his favour. Why
should he have incriminated himself by drawing his own hands? But again,
why should he have drawn the picture at all? There is nobody else on whom falls a shadow of suspicion. I sum up
impartially. The jury convict on circumstantial evidence, and I sentence
the prisoner to death. A short time must elapse between the sentence and carrying it into
force. The Avocat for the defence obtains for the prisoner a slight
concession; he may have picture and charcoal in his cell. Perhaps he can
yet free himself from the web which has inmeshed him! Arnaud tries to blot out thought by sketching in and erasing again
fanciful figures twisted into a peculiar position; he cannot adjust the
pose of the unknown murderer. So in despair he gives it up. One morning, three days before the execution, the innkeeper comes to
visit him and finds him lying face downwards on the narrow pallet. Despite his own grief, he is sorry for the young man; nor is he
convinced in his shrewd bourgeois mind of the latter's guilt. "You _must_ draw in the second figure," he repeats again and again. "It
is your last, your only chance! Think of the faces you saw at the 'Loup
Noir.' Do none of them recall anything to you? You quarrelled with
Jehane in the garden about your brother. Then you went to your room. Oh,
what did you think in your room?" "I thought of your niece," responds Arnaud wildly. "How very beautiful
she was, and what a model she would make. Then I prepared a blank
canvas for the morning, and went to bed. When I woke up the picture was
there." "And you remember nothing more--nothing at all?" insists Jean Potin. "You fell asleep at once? You heard no sound?" Against the barred window of the cell the rain patters softly. A distant
clock booms out eleven strokes. Something in the artist's brain seems to snap. He raises his head. He
slides from the bed. As in a trance he crosses the cell, seizes a piece
of charcoal, and feverishly works at the picture on the easel! Not daring to speak, Jean Potin watches him. The figure behind the hands
grows and grows beneath Arnaud's fingers. A woman's figure! Then the face: a coarse, malignant face, distorted by evil passions. "Ah!" It is a cry of recognition from the breathless innkeeper. It breaks the
spell. The charcoal drops, and the prisoner, passing his hand across his
eyes, gazes bewildered at his own work. "Who? What?" "But I know her! It is the woman in whose room you slept! She was
staying at the 'Loup Noir' the very night before you arrived, and she
left that morning. She and her husband, Monsieur Guillaumet. But it is
incredible if _she_ should have----"

I will be short with you, gentlemen. Madame Guillaumet was traced to her
flat in Paris. Arnaud's Avocat confronted her with the now completed
picture. She was confounded--babbled like a mad woman--confessed! A reprieve for further inquiry was granted by the State. Finally Arnaud
was cleared, and allowed to go free. The motive for the murder? A woman's jealousy. Monsieur and Madame
Guillaumet had been married only ten months. Her age was forty-nine; his
twenty-seven.