Oh, how funny it all
is! Gad, I knew that you would never have the cheek to arrest me, and
that the Prefect of Police would manage to calm the untimely ardour of
that confounded Weber! To begin with, one doesn't arrest a man whom one
has need of. Come, out with it! Lord, how stupid you look! Why don't you
answer? How far have you got at the office? Quick, speak! I'll settle the
thing in five seconds. Just tell me about your inquiry in two words, and
I'll finish it for you in the twinkling of a bed-post, in two minutes by
my watch. Well, you were saying--"

"But, Chief," spluttered Mazeroux, utterly nonplussed.

"What! Must I drag the words out of you? Come on! I'll make a start. It
has to do with the man with the ebony walking-stick, hasn't it? The one
we saw at the Cafe du Pont-Neuf on the day when Inspector Verot was
murdered?"

"Yes, it has."

"Have you found his traces?"

"Yes."

"Well, come along, find your tongue!"

"It's like this, Chief. Some one else noticed him besides the waiter.
There was another customer in the cafe; and this other customer, whom I
ended by discovering, went out at the same time as our man and heard
him ask somebody in the street which was the nearest underground
station for Neuilly."

"Capital, that. And, in Neuilly, by asking questions on every side, you
ferreted him out?"

"And even learnt his name, Chief: Hubert Lautier, of the Avenue du Roule.
Only he decamped from there six months ago, leaving his furniture behind
him and taking nothing but two trunks."

"What about the post-office?"

"We have been to the post-office. One of the clerks recognized the
description which we supplied. Our man calls once every eight or ten days
to fetch his mail, which never amounts to much: just one or two letters.
He has not been there for some time."

"Is the correspondence in his name?"

"No, initials."

"Were they able to remember them?"

"Yes: B.R.W.8."

"Is that all?"

"That is absolutely all that I have discovered. But one of my fellow
officers succeeded in proving, from the evidence of two detectives, that
a man carrying a silver-handled ebony walking-stick and a pair of
tortoise-shell glasses walked out of the Gare d'Auteuil on the evening of
the double murder and went toward Renelagh. Remember the presence of Mme.
Fauville in that neighbourhood at the same hour. And remember that the
crime was committed round about midnight. I conclude from this--"

"That will do; be o