l billiard player, and also the hero of the terrible
Charity Bazaar fire, where, at the risk of his life, he had saved several
women from the flames. For this bravery the city of Paris had awarded him a
gold medal and people had praised him until his head was half turned.

So familiar a figure was Martinez that there was no difficulty in finding
witnesses in the restaurant able to identify him positively as the dead
man. Several had seen him within a few days at the Olympia billiard
academy, where he had been practicing for a much-advertised match with an
American rival. All agreed that Martinez was quite the last man in Paris to
take his own life, for the simple reason that he enjoyed it altogether too
much. He was scarcely thirty and in excellent health, he made plenty of
money, he was fond of pleasure, and particularly fond of the ladies and had
no reason to complain of bad treatment at their hands; in fact, if the
truth must be told, he was ridiculously vain of his conquests among the
fair sex, and was always saying to whoever would listen: "Ah, _mon cher_, I
have met a woman! But _such_ a woman!" Then his dark eyes would glow and he
would snap his thumb nail under an upper tooth, with an expression of
ravishing joy that only a Castilian billiard player could assume. And, of
course, it was always a different woman!

"Aha!" muttered the commissary. "There may be a husband mixed up in this.
Call that waiter again, and--er--we will continue the examination
outside."

With this they removed to the adjoining private room, Number Five, leaving
a policeman at the door of Number Six until proper disposal of the body
should be made.

In the further questioning of Joseph the commissary brought out several
important facts. The waiter testified that, after serving the soup to
Martinez and the lady, he had not left the corridor outside the door of
Number Six until the moment when he entered the room and discovered the
crime. During this interval of perhaps a quarter of an hour he had moved
down the corridor a short distance, but not farther than the door of Number
Four. He was sure of this because one of the doors to the banquet room was
just opposite the door of Number Four, and he had stood there listening to
a Fourth-of-July speaker who was discussing the relations between France
and America. Joseph, being something of a politician, was greatly
interested in this.

"Then this banquet-room door was open?" questioned Pougeo