ped out of the underground railway-station
and made for the Rue de Berne.

The victim, who was known in the theatrical world by her stage-name of
Jenny Saphir, occupied a small flat on the second floor of one of the
houses. A policeman took the chief-inspector upstairs and showed him the
way, through two sitting-rooms, to a bedroom, where he found the
magistrates in charge of the inquiry, together with the divisional
surgeon and M. Dudouis, the head of the detective-service.

Ganimard started at the first glance which he gave into the room. He
saw, lying on a sofa, the corpse of a young woman whose hands clutched a
strip of red silk! One of the shoulders, which appeared above the
low-cut bodice, bore the marks of two wounds surrounded with clotted
blood. The distorted and almost blackened features still bore an
expression of frenzied terror.

The divisional surgeon, who had just finished his examination, said:

"My first conclusions are very clear. The victim was twice stabbed with
a dagger and afterward strangled. The immediate cause of death was
asphyxia."

"By Jove!" thought Ganimard again, remembering Lupin's words and the
picture which he had drawn of the crime.

The examining-magistrate objected:

"But the neck shows no discoloration."

"She may have been strangled with a napkin or a handkerchief," said the
doctor.

"Most probably," said the chief detective, "with this silk scarf, which
the victim was wearing and a piece of which remains, as though she had
clung to it with her two hands to protect herself."

"But why does only that piece remain?" asked the magistrate. "What has
become of the other?"

"The other may have been stained with blood and carried off by the
murderer. You can plainly distinguish the hurried slashing of the
scissors."

"By Jove!" said Ganimard, between his teeth, for the third time. "That
brute of a Lupin saw everything without seeing a thing!"

"And what about the motive of the murder?" asked the magistrate. "The
locks have been forced, the cupboards turned upside down. Have you
anything to tell me, M. Dudouis?"

The chief of the detective-service replied:

"I can at least suggest a supposition, derived from the statements made
by the servant. The victim, who enjoyed a greater reputation on account
of her looks than through her talent as a singer, went to Russia, two
years ago, and brought back with her a magnificent sapphire, which she
appears to have received from som