of voices, then silence.... A few minutes after, Fandor
clearly heard some persons entering the ground floor of the house.

He listened intently: he could hear his own heartbeats.

Then a voice said:

"In Heaven's name! Is it possible? Why do you come to upset people at
this time of night? As if we had not had enough to put up with during
the day! It is a dreadful business! There's no doubt about it! Are we
never to be left in peace?"

"Why, it's Madame Bourrat's voice!" said Fandor. "Poor woman! What's
up?" He listened. Someone said:

"The law is the law, madame, and we are it's humble executors. As the
examining judge has ordered me to make an investigating distraint, we
are compelled to carry out his instructions to the letter. Be good
enough to tell your servant to lead us to the actual spot where the
crime was attempted."

"Now what is all this?" asked Fandor. "And from whence comes this police
inspector? It only wanted that! He won't know what to make of it when I
tell him who I am--and how am I to explain my presence here? Anyhow,
wait, and see what happens!"

"Someone was coming upstairs--more than one!"

"This way, messieurs!" said a hoarse voice. "The room the young lady
occupied is at the end of this passage!"

"This time I recognise my fine fellow!" thought Fandor. "It is that
imbecile of a Jules. But what a triumphant tone! And how different his
voice sounds to what it did, this afternoon, at the examination!"

Then Fandor all but jumped from his hiding place.

"Oh! What an egregious fool I am! Why, there is not a police inspector
in France who would come at this hour to carry out an investigation--and
a distraint to boot! What the devil does it mean? Can they be the fine
fellows I am lying in wait to meet?"

The dubious individuals who had roused the house at such an unholy hour
entered the room. Someone turned on the electric light.

Though Fandor could obtain a sufficient supply of air through the
openings in the wickerwork, he could not see what was going on: he could
only listen with all his ears.

Madame Bourrat accompanied her strange visitors.

"It is here," she exclaimed, "that the journalist, Jerome Fandor, found
my boarder stretched out on the floor.... You see, in this corner, is
the gas stove with its tubing! They have forgotten to refix it to the
pipe; but there is no danger, the tap is turned off and so is the
meter."

The personage who had given out that he was a police