es: par contre, une amitie
amoureuse tres suivie avec Madame (Marguerite) Pargeter. Voir dossier
Pargeter (Thomas)."

Amitie amoureuse? Friendship akin to love? The English language, so rich
in synonyms, owns no exact equivalent for this French phrase, expressive
though it be of a phase of human emotion as old as human nature itself.

Vanderlyn looked up. His eyes met squarely those of the other man.

"Your staff," he said, very quietly, "have served you well, Monsieur; my
_dossier_ is, on the whole, extraordinarily correct. There is but one
word which I would have altered, and which, indeed, I venture to beg you
to correct without loss of time. The young man--he is evidently a young
man--who wrote the summary to which you have drawn my attention, must
have literary tastes, otherwise there is one word in this document which
would not be there." Vanderlyn put his finger down firmly on the word
"amoureuse." "My relations with Mrs. Pargeter were, it is true, those of
close friendship, but I must ask you to accept my assurance, Monsieur le
Prefet, that they were not what the writer of this passage evidently
believed them to have been."

"I will make a note of the correction," said the Prefect, gravely, "and
I must offer you my very sincere excuses for having troubled you
to-night."

As Vanderlyn's late visitor drove home that night, he said to himself,
indeed he said aloud to the walls of the shabby little carriage which
had heard so many important secrets, "He knows whatever there is to be
known--but, then, what is it that is to be known? Of what mystery am I
now seeking the solution?"

IX.

As he heard the door shut on the Prefect of Police, Vanderlyn felt his
nerve give way. There had come a moment during the conversation, when,
as if urged by some malignant power outside himself, he had felt a
sudden craving to take the old official into his confidence, and tell
him the whole truth--so magnetic were the personality, the compelling
will, of the man who had just left him.

He walked over to the corner window of his sitting-room, and stepped
onto the stone balcony which overlooked the twinkling lights of the
Place de la Concorde.

Then, flung out, merged in the deep roar below, there broke from
Laurence Vanderlyn a bitter cry; the keen night air had brought with it
a sudden memory of that moment when he had opened the railway carriage
door and stepped out into the rushing wind.... He asked himself why he