If I am not already there, it will
not be long before I make my appearance. Everything is going on
satisfactorily.

"Lacheneur."

Alas! what did this letter reveal? Only that the dead man's name was
Gustave; that he had some connection with a man named Lacheneur, who had
advanced him money for a certain object; and that they had met at the
Rainbow some hours before the murder.

It was little--very little--but still it was something. It was a clue;
and in this absolute darkness even the faintest gleam of light was
eagerly welcomed.

"Lacheneur!" growled Gevrol; "the poor devil uttered that name in his
last agony."

"Precisely," insisted Father Absinthe, "and he declared that he wished
to revenge himself upon him. He accused him of having drawn him into a
trap. Unfortunately, death cut his story short."

Lecoq was silent. The commissary of police had handed him the letter,
and he was studying it with the closest attention. The paper on which
it was written was of the ordinary kind; the ink was blue. In one of the
corners was a half-effaced stamp, of which one could just distinguish
the word--Beaumarchais.

This was enough for Lecoq. "This letter," he thought, "was certainly
written in a cafe on the Boulevard Beaumarchais. In which one? I must
ascertain that point, for this Lacheneur must be found."

While the agents of the prefecture were gathered around the commissary,
holding council and deliberating, the physicians began their delicate
and disagreeable task. With the assistance of Father Absinthe, they
removed the clothing of the pretended soldier, and then, with sleeves
rolled up, they bent over their "subject" like surgeons in the schools
of anatomy, and examined, inspected, and appraised him physically.
Very willingly would the younger doctor have dispensed with these
formalities, which he considered very ridiculous, and entirely
unnecessary; but the old physician had too high a regard for his
profession, and for the duty he had been called upon to fulfil, to
neglect the slightest detail. Minutely, and with the most scrupulous
exactitude, he noted the height of the dead man, his supposed age, the
nature of his temperament, the color and length of his hair, and the
degree of development of his muscular system.

Then the doctors passed to an examination of the wound. Lecoq had judged
correctly. The medical men declared it to be a fracture of the base
of the skull. It could, they stated, only have been ca