anded Pougeot sharply, looking at
the others.

"It's extraordinary," answered the doctor, "but no one seems to have seen
this woman go out. M. Gibelin made inquiries, but he could learn nothing
except that she really went to the telephone booth. The girl there
remembers her."

Again Pougeot turned to the waiter.

"What sort of a woman was she? A lady or--or not?"

Joseph clucked his tongue admiringly. "She was a lady, all right. And a
stunner! Eyes and--shoulders and--um-m!" He described imaginary feminine
curves with the unction of a male dressmaker. "Oh, there's one thing more!"

"You can tell me later. Now, doctor, we'll look at the room. I'll need you,
Leroy, and you and you." He motioned to his secretary and to two of his
men.

Dr. Joubert, bowing gravely, opened the door of Number Six, and the
commissary entered, followed by his scribe, a very bald and pale young man,
and by the two policemen. Last came the doctor, closing the door carefully
behind him.

It was the commissary's custom on arriving at the scene of a crime to
record his first impressions immediately, taking careful note of every fact
and detail in the picture that seemed to have the slightest bearing on the
case. These he would dictate rapidly to his secretary, walking back and
forth, searching everywhere with keen eyes and trained intelligence,
especially for signs of violence, a broken window, an overturned table, a
weapon, and noting all suspicious stains--mud stains, blood stains, the
print of a foot, the smear of a hand and, of course, describing carefully
the appearance of a victim's body, the wounds, the position, the expression
of the face, any tearing or disorder of the garments. Many times these
quick, haphazard jottings, made in the precious moments immediately
following a crime, had proved of incalculable value in the subsequent
investigation.

In the present case, however, M. Pougeot was fairly taken aback by the
_lack_ of significant material. Everything in the room was as it should be,
table spread with snowy linen, two places set faultlessly among flowers and
flashing glasses, chairs in their places, pictures smiling down from the
white-and-gold walls, shaded electric lights diffusing a pleasant glow--in
short, no disorder, no sign of struggle, yet, there, stretched at full
length on the floor near a pale-yellow sofa, lay a man in evening dress,
his head resting, face downward, in a little red pool. He was evidently
dead.