of the chest of drawers,
under a pile of linen. He was whistling now.

"That bit of soap is interesting--very!" he cried. "Let the police come!
I am not afraid of their blundering!... Now to see how Elizabeth is
getting on!"

When he reached her side, he found she had recovered full consciousness,
and was preparing to answer the questions of a police superintendent,
who, summoned by the bankers, had hastened to the scene of action. He
was a stout, apoplectic man, very full of his own importance.

"Come now, mademoiselle, tell us just how things happened from beginning
to end! We ask nothing better than to believe you, but do not conceal
any detail--not the slightest...."

Poor Elizabeth Dollon, when she heard this speech, stared at the pompous
police official, astonished. What had she to conceal? What had she to
gain by lying? What did he think, this fat policeman, who took it upon
himself to issue orders, when he should rather have tried to comfort
her! Nevertheless, she at once began telling him all that she knew with
regard to the affair. She told him of her letter to Fandor: that her
room had been visited the evening before: by whom she did not know ...
that she had not said a word about it to anyone, fearing vengeance would
fall on her, frightened, not understanding what it all meant....

Then she came to what the police dignitary called "her suicide." As she
finished her recital with a reference to her rescue by Fandor, she
looked at the young journalist. It was a look of great gratitude and a
kind of ardent tenderness, with a touch of fear in it.

"Strange, very strange!" pronounced the superintendent of police, who
had been taking notes with an air of great gravity. "So very strange,
mademoiselle, that it is very difficult to credit your statements!...
very difficult indeed!..."

Whilst he was speaking, Fandor was saying to himself:

"Decidedly, it is that!... Just what I was thinking! It is quite clear,
clear as the sun in the sky, evident, indisputable!" And he refused,
very politely of course--for one has to respect the authorities--to
accompany the superintendent, who, in his turn, went upstairs to
Elizabeth's room, in order to carry out the necessary legal
verification....

XIV

SOMEONE TELEPHONED

The nuns of the order of Saint Augustin were not expelled in consequence
of the Decrees. This was a special favour, but one fully justified,
because of the incalculable benefits this commun