ointment, and the minions of
the law sweat in the exercise of their duty.

I demanded Theodore! My friend, my comrade, my right hand! I had seen
him not ten minutes ago, carrying in his arms this very dog, whom I
had subsequently found inside a wall cupboard beside a blood-stained
coat. Where was Theodore? Pointing an avenging finger at the
red-headed reprobate, I boldly accused him of having murdered my
friend with a view to robbing him of the reward offered for the
recovery of the dog.

This brought a new train of thought into the wooden pates of the
gendarmes. A quartet of them had by this time assembled within the
respectable precincts of the Hotel des Cadets. One of them--senior to
the others--at once dispatched a younger comrade to the nearest
commissary of police for advice and assistance.

Then he ordered us all into the room pompously labelled "Reception,"
and there proceeded once more to interrogate us all, making copious
notes in his leather-bound book all the time, whilst I, moaning and
lamenting the loss of my faithful friend and man of all work, loudly
demanded the punishment of his assassin.

Theodore's coat, his hat, the blood-stained rag, had all been brought
down from No. 25 and laid out upon the table ready for the inspection
of M. the Commissary of Police.

That gentleman arrived with two private agents, armed with full powers
and wrapped in the magnificent imperturbability of the law. The
gendarme had already put him _au fait_ of the events, and as soon as
he was seated behind the table upon which reposed the "pieces de
conviction," he in his turn proceeded to interrogate the ginger-pated
miscreant.

But strive how he might, M. the Commissary elicited no further
information from him than that which we all already possessed. The man
gave his name as Aristide Nicolet. He had no fixed abode. He had come
to visit his friend who lodged in No. 25 in the Hotel des Cadets. Not
finding him at home he had sat by the fire and had waited for him. He
knew absolutely nothing of the dog and absolutely nothing of the
whereabouts of Theodore.

"We'll soon see about that!" asserted M. the Commissary.

He ordered a perquisition of every room and every corner of the hotel,
Madame the proprietress loudly lamenting that she and her respectable
house would henceforth be disgraced for ever. But the thieves--whoever
they were--were clever. Not a trace of any illicit practice was found
on the premises--and not a t