en there
before you retired to bed the chambermaid must certainly have seen
them. She makes a round of the rooms each night at ten o'clock.
Besides, the facts that the bolt had been tampered with, and also that
the man who occupied 175 left so early and so hurriedly, are
additionally suspicious. Yes," he added, "I think we ought to see the
police."

With that object he took me at once to Senor Andrade, the Chief of
Police, a short, stout, alert little man, who heard me with keen
interest and seemed very puzzled.

"The intruder's explanation was certainly a very clever one," he
remarked in French. "It is a pity you did not demand to see his
friend, Pedro Espada. If you had, you would have discovered him to be
nonexistent."

"But he was so clever," I answered. "He told me that at that hour he
could not discover in which room his friend was really sleeping."

"But the night-porter was on duty," exclaimed the hotel manager. "He
had the register and would have been able at once to tell you the
number of the room."

The fellow seemed so frank in revealing to me his money, the
portraits of his family, and his private letters, that I had taken his
statement as the truth.

Yet, even now, I could not believe that he had any sinister
design--not until the Professor had examined those three carpet pins.

In response to close questions put to me by Senor Andrade, with whom
was Senor Rivero, the head of the Detective Branch, I gave a
description of my midnight visitor as accurately as I could. I told
them how I had covered him with my automatic pistol, and how
afterwards we had laughed together at our mental fear of each other.

Senor Rivero, the bald-headed, black-bearded chief of the branch of
criminal investigation, suddenly stopped me when I mentioned the scar
upon the neck of the advocate from Burgos.

"Did you notice that there was any deformity of his hands?" he asked
quickly.

In an instant I recollected that the little finger of his right hand
had been amputated at the first joint, and I told him so.

"Ah!" exclaimed the shrewd, dark-bearded official. "Perhaps we may
here find something of interest. Just a few moments," and he rose and
left us.

We chatted with Senor Andrade for about a quarter of an hour when the
detective returned with a bundle of papers and four photographs of a
man taken in police style upon one negative, full face, three-quarter,
half and profile.

The instant he placed it before me,