l litter of papers, had
been spread the criminal facts of a generation, the sinister harvest of
ignorance and vice and poverty. On these battered chairs had sat and
twisted hundreds of poor wretches, innocent and guilty, petty thieves,
shifty-eyed scoundrels, dull brutes of murderers, and occasionally a
criminal of a higher class, summoned for the preliminary examinations.
Here, under the eye of a bored guard, they had passed miserable hours while
the judge, smiling or frowning, hands in his pockets, strode back and forth
over the shabby red-and-green carpet putting endless questions, sifting out
truth from falsehood, struggling against stupidity and cunning, studying
each new case as a separate problem with infinite tact and insight, never
wearying, never losing his temper, coming back again and again to the
essential point until more than one stubborn criminal had broken down and,
from sheer exhaustion, confessed, like the assassin who finally blurted
out: "Well, yes, I did it. I'd rather be guillotined than bothered like
this."

Such was Judge Hauteville, cold, patient, inexorable in the pursuit of
truth. And presently he arrived.

"You look serious this morning," he said, remarking Coquenil's pale face.

"Yes," nodded M. Paul, "that's how I feel," and settling himself in a chair
he proceeded to relate the events of the night, ending with a frank account
of his misadventure on the Champs Elysees.

The judge listened with grave attention. This was a more serious affair
than he had imagined. Not only was there no longer any question of suicide,
but it was obvious that they were dealing with a criminal of the most
dangerous type and one possessed of extraordinary resources.

"You believe it was the assassin himself who met you?" questioned
Hauteville.

"Don't you?"

"I'm not sure. You think his motive was to get the woman's address?"

"Isn't that reasonable?"

Hauteville shook his head. "He wouldn't have risked so much for that. How
did he know that you hadn't copied the name and given it to one of us--say
to me?"

"Ah, if I only had," sighed the detective.

"How did he know that you wouldn't remember the name? Can't you remember
it--at all?"

"That's what I've been trying to do," replied the other gloomily, "I've
tried and tried, but the name won't come back. I put those pieces together
and read the words distinctly, the name and the address. It was a foreign
name, English I should say, and the street wa