the floor
lay the body of a man, a well-dressed man, wearing the white
kerseymere trousers, the light waistcoat, and long-tailed green coat
which were then in vogue. His clothes were all spotted and bedrabbled
with gore; his shirt was torn open, and plainly revealed the great
gaping wound from which his life's blood was quickly ebbing away.

The wounded man's head rested on the knee of the night porter, a
personage wearing a kind of livery, a strongly built, truculent-looking
villain, whose duties, no doubt, comprised the putting of people out as
well as the letting them into the house.

"Oh, Anatole! my cherished one!" began the porter's wife. "Here are
the police. Tell us then, how this occurred."

"I will tell all I know," replied her husband, looking at the
police-officer. "This morning, when the clients had nearly all gone,
and I was sitting half asleep in the lodge, I heard--"

"Stop," said the police-officer, "not another word. Keep all you have
to say for the commissary. He is already on the stairs."

The next minute M. Bontoux entered, accompanied by his clerk and the
official doctor of the quarter.

"A crime," said the commissary, slowly, and with as much dignity as
was possible in a middle-aged gentleman pulled from his bed at
daybreak, and compelled to dress in a hurry. "A crime," he repeated.
"Of that there can be no doubt. But let us establish the fact
formally. Where are the witnesses?"

The porter, having relinquished the care of the wounded man to the
doctor, stood up slowly and saluted the commissary.

"Very well; tell us what you know. Sit down"--this to the clerk.
"Produce your writing-materials and prepare the report."

"It must have been about four this morning, but I was very drowsy, and
the gentlemen had nearly all gone," said the night porter, speaking
fluently, "when I was disturbed by the noise of a quarrel, a fight, up
here in the principal drawing-room. While I was still rubbing my eyes,
for I was very drowsy, and fancied I was dreaming, I heard a scream, a
second, and a third, followed by a heavy fall on the floor. I rushed
upstairs then, and found this poor gentleman as you see him."

"Alone?"

"Quite alone."

"But there must have been other people here. Did they come down the
stairs past you?"

"No, sir; they must have escaped by that window. It was open--"

The commissary looked at the police-officer, who nodded intelligently.

"I had already noticed it, Mr. Commissar