No one is found in the guard's-van. The shock undoubtedly hurled the guard into the sand. All that is certain. Now, after having stripped Signor Petito of his clothes, you sat down on the embankment and read his papers. When you raised your head, the railway-carriage was no longer there. Well, since there was a slope and since there was a wind, which waggled the head of M. Petito at the window, the carriage, after having glided down to H, found itself once more on the line A B a little higher up than H on the side of B, where the staff of the station have by now certainly found it. Do you understand now? Do you understand everything, except that you have n't seen the train pass K? Since everything is thus explained, it must be that that was how things happened. Now I only seek how you were not able to see the train pass K. That which it is impossible to explain in the case of five persons at A or at B may very well be explained in the case of one at K.'
"'I am waiting,' said M. Longuet.
"I chuckled—and truly there was reason to chuckle—and went on, 'There are moments when you are deaf, M. Longuet?'
"'There certainly are,' said M. Longuet.
"'Suppose you were deaf during the mo-
