with fur of a rare silvery shade. Its eyes shone red in the darkness, which is usual for animals of this species, but it seemed to Jeannette that in those eyes hellfire sparkled. The wolves ran absolutely silently, like ghosts, and the distance between them and their potential victims, despite the horses' mad run, decreased every minute. Leroi didn't try to manage the horses any longer; he just sat, grasping the reins and staring into the darkness with eyes wide open from fear.
The dull crash sounded, and the carriage, which had lost a wheel, jerkily fell sidewards. The door swung open, and Jeannette, who had no time to grab any support, fell out on the road. The crazed horses dragged the overturned carriage further.
When Jeannette came to her senses after falling, she saw the wolves had surrounded her in a semicircle. The leader wrinkled its nose in a snarl, baring its canines which dimly shone in the light of stars. Jeannette felt hair stand on her head; paralyzed by horror, she couldn't resist, couldn't shout–she only looked at the slowly approaching beast...
"I am sorry, monsieur Dubois," Inspector Leblanc said, "but you should participate in the identification. The body is very mutilated..."
"Yes," Dubois said, dully staring ahead, "yes, of course." After a a short pause, he asked: "And did Leroi escape?"
"It is hardly possible to call it escape," the inspector answered. "He was found near the wreckage of the coach. The wolves didn't touch him, but what he endured had a pernicious effect on him... He was sitting, absolutely gray-haired, stupidly staring at one point; in this condition he still stays now. The poor man lost his mind."
"It looks like all this doesn't much fit your hypothesis about an avenger," gloomily noted Dubois. "Would you say that the wolves were trained?"
"Yes, it would sound ridiculous... Wolves generally aren't tamable. Though, on the other hand, there are breeds of dogs very similar to wolves. And an attack of a wolf pack on a coach is so unusual at this time... They actually behaved more like dogs: bit the victim to death, but didn't gobble her up. Besides, the wheel–why did it suddenly fall off? It might be an accident... or the axle might have been weakened The examination doesn't allow me to say unequivocally now."
"You don't abandon your idea?" Dubois was surprised.
"I don't know, monsieur Dubois; I simply don't know. If this is a crime, then it is devilishly, improbably cunning and difficult to accomplish; otherwise, it is an improbable chain of coincidences. We have to choose between two improbabilities. Well, are you ready? The doctor waits for us."
When the uneasy formalities were finished, Clavier expressed a desire to talk to Dubois. The latter mechanically nodded.
For some time both kept silence.
"She was very valuable to you, wasn't she?" the doctor began at last.
"Yes... probably she was," the businessman answered, "though I never thought about it before."
"Now will you leave?"
"No!" Dubois gritted his teeth. "Now I especially won't leave under any circumstances! Nobody in the world will expel me from my house!”
"Excuse me, monsieur, but this has become a kind of obsession. Certainly, all that you had to suffer..."
"Spare me this nonsense, doctor! I am as clear-headed as always. The laws of probability are on my side. Coincidences can't proceed eternally—that means, I am not in danger. Or do you, like the inspector, see in all this a malicious intention?"
"Leblanc still considers that we deal with an ordinary criminal?"
"Not with anyone ordinary; however, he isn't sure about the possibilities. He theorizes that in the last tragedy dogs could have been used as murder weapons."
"As far as I can judge, they were wolves."
"Then why... why didn't they eat her?"
"Well, here a very simple explanation is possible. Wolves are very sensitive to smells; the smell of perfume could stave off their appetite. Excuse me for such details..."
"On the contrary, you calmed me. Now I precisely know that we deal only with coincidences."
"You see, monsieur Dubois... that's what I wanted to talk to you about. As well as Leblanc, I don't believe in too a large number of coincidences... but in this case I also doubt that an ordinary human being could arrange all this."
"Then who?" Dubois grinned. "The angered ghost of count de Montreux?"
"You are wrong to treat it so lightly."
"What?!" Dubois stared at the doctor in astonishment. "You don't really mean to say that you believe in such bullshit?! You, a man of science!"
"Yes, certainly, we live in the nineteenth century when it seems