n!"

"I say! I say!"

"Oh, it was all explained! As soon as Jules had gone, the police
inspector told me that they had found keys in his rooms, keys which
could be made to fit any kind of lock whatever. Monsieur Xavie was
convinced that my poor Jules was a burglar--imagine it!"

"And you, yourself, madame, are convinced of the contrary?"

"Oh, assuredly! Why, I have known Jules a very long time! And in many
little ways on many occasions, he has shown himself to be strictly
honest."

"But those false keys?"

"Those false keys, Monsieur Fandor, why I myself made Jules buy them,
hoping to find among them one that would open my coach-house."

"So that?..."

"So that, Monsieur Fandor, the police inspector was obliged to agree
with me that Jules was honest!"

"And he released this servant of yours?" asked Fandor.

His tone expressed annoyance.

"No, and that is why I am so distressed. He said, that provisionally, at
least, my servant, Jules, was to be considered as under arrest! What
ought to be done to get him let out?"

"But, madame!... He will be set free to-morrow, you may be certain of
it!..."

"No doubt he will!... All the same, there is my house turned upside
down, and I need Jules to help me to-night!... I really do not know what
I shall do without him! Poor fellow!... I simply cannot imagine how it
is they suspect him!"

Fandor said, with mock gravity:

"Ah, madame, Justice is sometimes so stupid--so wrongheaded!... Look
here now, would you like a bit of good advice?... Telephone to Messieurs
Barbey-Nanteuil. They are well known and powerful--perhaps they would
exert their influence in your servant's favour? He might be set free
this evening! I, you see, am but a journalist, and without a scrap of
influence!"

Madame Bourrat thought this a good idea. Fandor rang for an attendant.

"Take madame to the telephone!"

Left to himself, the reporter could not help rubbing his hands.

"I must get rid of this excellent woman, who is certainly the most
foolish person it has ever been my lot to meet. Good hearing! That
servant of hers is under lock and key--things are going in the right
direction ... but they are not going well for me!... If he confesses,
to-morrow, when he is had up for examination, then the police will have
the information before me!... Then, too, they are such duffers--such
bunglers--that they are quite capable of giving that Jules his
liberty!... What the deuce must I do to prevent