immediately fell in a fit of hysterics
that lasted three-quarters of an hour. When at last she came to herself,
she told her story, and, the hall-porter having been summoned, Rameau's
rooms were again approached.

The blood still lay on the floor, and the chopper, with which the crime
had evidently been committed, rested against the fender; but the body had
vanished! A search was at once made, but no trace of it could be seen
anywhere. It seemed impossible that it could have been carried out of the
building, for the hall-porter must at once have noticed anybody leaving
with so bulky a burden. Still, in the building it was not to be found.

When Hewitt was informed of these things on Monday, the police were, of
course, still in possession of Rameau's rooms. Inspector Nettings, Hewitt
was told, was in charge of the case, and as the inspector was an
acquaintance of his, and was then in the rooms upstairs, Hewitt went up to
see him.

Nettings was pleased to see Hewitt, and invited him to look around the
rooms. "Perhaps you can spot something we have overlooked," he said.
"Though it's not a case there can be much doubt about."

"You think it's Goujon, don't you?"

"Think? Well, rather! Look here! As soon as we got here on Saturday, we
found this piece of paper and pin on the floor. We showed it to the
housemaid, and then she remembered--she was too much upset to think of it
before--that when she was in the room the paper was laying on the dead
man's chest--pinned there, evidently. It must have dropped off when they
removed the body. It's a case of half-mad revenge on Goujon's part,
plainly. See it; you read French, don't you?"

The paper was a plain, large half-sheet of note-paper, on which a sentence
in French was scrawled in red ink in a large, clumsy hand, thus:

_puni par un vengeur de la tortue_.

"_Puni par un vengeur de la tortue_," Hewitt repeated musingly. "'Punished
by an avenger of the tortoise,' That seems odd."

"Well, rather odd. But you understand the reference, of course. Have they
told you about Rameau's treatment of Goujon's pet tortoise?"

"I think it was mentioned among his other pranks. But this is an extreme
revenge for a thing of that sort, and a queer way of announcing it."

"Oh, he's mad--mad with Rameau's continual ragging and baiting," Nettings
answered. "Anyway, this is a plain indication--plain as though he'd left
his own signature. Besides, it's in his own language--French. And the