Monsieur Havard remarked:

"He has not hanged himself. Again the stage has been set!... I could
swear the man had been killed by blows from a hammer and hanged
afterwards!... It seems to me, that if death had been caused through
strangulation, there would have been marks round the neck.... But see,
Fandor, the rope has hardly made a mark."

"No, the man was dead when they strung him up."

"It is of secondary importance!" remarked Fandor, who was preoccupied.

"You are mistaken: it matters a great deal! It decidedly looks as if
Dollon had accomplices, who wished to be rid of him."

Fandor shook his head.

"It is not Dollon! It cannot be Dollon!"

"Look at the vitriolised hands--that was a precaution."

"I say, as you did just now: it's like a set piece--a bit of slag
assassins' stage craft."

"I say, in Dollon's house, we have found Dollon at home!"

Fandor was not convinced. He felt certain Dollon had lied in the Depot.

"Well, Elizabeth Dollon can settle the question for us. There may be
some physical peculiarity, some mark by which she can identify her
brother's body!"

But Fandor was examining the body very carefully. Suddenly he rose from
his stooping posture, exclaiming:

"I know who it is!"

"Who?"

"Jules! None other than Madame Bourrat's servant, Jules!... That is to
say, an accomplice whom the bandits we are after wanted to be rid of. He
might give them away when brought up for examination. That was why they
managed his escape: they killed him afterwards, because he had served
their turn, and was now an encumbrance."

"Your explanation is plausible, Fandor; but how about the truth of it?"

"This proves the truth of it!" cried Fandor, pointing to a cicatrice on
the back of the neck of the murdered man: it was the clear mark of where
an abscess had been.

"I am certain I noticed a similar mark on the neck of Jules. He sat in
front of me the other day, and I particularly noticed this mark. The
dead man is Jules. I am certain it is Jules!"

Monsieur Havard was silent. Presently he said:

"If it is Jules ... it must be admitted that we are no further forward!"

Fandor was about to utter a protest, when there was a knock on the
studio door. Startled, the two men looked at each other anxiously.

"It can only be one of the force," murmured Monsieur Havard. "I told
them I was coming here with you, and that they were to send for me if
necessary."

The two men walked to the door. Monsieur Hav