mittedly auburn and cut short,
this was black, and had evidently been worn long. M. Goron, after
looking carefully at the hair, asked for some distilled water. He put
the lock of hair into it and, after a few minutes' immersion, cleansed
of the blood, grease and dust that had caked them together, the hairs
appeared clearly to be short and auburn. The doctor admitted his error.

Fortified by this success, Goron was able to procure the exhumation of
the body. A fresh autopsy was performed by Dr. Lacassagne, the eminent
medical jurist of the Lyons School of Medicine. He was able to pronounce
with certainty that the remains were those of the bailiff, Gouffe. An
injury to the right ankle, a weakness of the right leg, the absence of
a particular tooth and other admitted peculiarities in Gouffe's physical
conformation, were present in the corpse, placing its identity beyond
question. This second post-mortem revealed furthermore an injury to the
thyroid cartilage of the larynx that had been inflicted beyond any doubt
whatever, declared Dr. Lacassagne, before death.

There was little reason to doubt that Gouffe had been the victim of
murder by strangulation.

But by whom had the crime been committed? It was now the end of
November. Four months had passed since the bailiff's murder, and the
police had no clue to its perpetrators. At one time a friend of Gouffe's
had been suspected and placed under arrest, but he was released for want
of evidence.

One day toward the close of November, in the course of a conversation
with M. Goron, a witness who had known Gouffe surprised him by saying
abruptly, "There's another man who disappeared about the same time as
Gouffe." M. Goron pricked up his ears. The witness explained that he
had not mentioned the fact before, as he had not connected it with his
friend's disappearance; the man's name, he said, was Eyraud, Michel
Eyraud, M. Goron made some inquires as to this Michel Eyraud. He learnt
that he was a married man, forty-six years of age, once a distiller at
Sevres, recently commission-agent to a bankrupt firm, that he had left
France suddenly, about the time of the disappearance of Gouffe, and that
he had a mistress, one Gabrielle Bompard, who had disappeared with him.
Instinctively M. Goron connected this fugitive couple with the fate of
the murdered bailiff.

Confirmation of his suspicions was to come from London. The remains of
the trunk found at Millery had been skilfully put toge