omewhat unfair to accept large remuneration for doing nothing, M.
Renard said frankly, "Monsieur, this affair is beyond me; the keenest
agent of our police could make nothing of it. Unless you can tell
me more than you have done, I am utterly without a clew. I resign,
therefore, the task with which you honoured me, willing to resume it
again if you can give me information that could render me of use."

"What sort of information?"

"At least the names of some of the lady's relations who may yet be
living."

"But it strikes me that, if I could get at that piece of knowledge, I
should not require the services of the police. The relations would tell
me what had become of Louise Duval quite as readily as they would tell a
police agent."

"Quite true, Monsieur. It would really be picking your pockets if I
did not at once retire from your service. Nay, Monsieur, pardon me, no
further payments; I have already accepted too much. Your most obedient
servant."

Graham, left alone, fell into a very gloomy revery. He could not but be
sensible of the difficulties in the way of the object which had brought
him to Paris, with somewhat sanguine expectations of success founded on
a belief in the omniscience of the Parisian police, which is only to
be justified when they have to deal with a murderess or a political
incendiary. But the name of Louise Duval is about as common in France
as that of Mary Smith in England; and the English reader may judge
what would be the likely result of inquiring through the ablest of our
detectives after some Mary Smith of whom you could give little more
information than that she was the daughter of a drawing-master who had
died twenty years ago, that it was about fifteen years since anything
had been heard of her, that you could not say if through marriage or for
other causes she had changed her name or not, and you had reasons for
declining resort to public advertisements. In the course of inquiry so
instituted, the probability would be that you might hear of a great many
Mary Smiths, in the pursuit of whom your employee would lose all sight
and scent of the one Mary Smith for whom the chase was instituted.

In the midst of Graham's despairing reflections his laquais announced M.
Frederic Lemercier.

"Cher Grarm-Varn. A thousand pardons if I disturb you at this late hour
of the evening; but you remember the request you made me when you first
arrived in Paris this season?"

"Of course I do,--in ca