those visits made on fixed dates, as on anniversaries, revealed
an intimacy, a relationship perhaps, of the murdered man with that
unknown woman. The woman was young, elegant and did not live in Paris.
Rodier had set himself to discover her retreat, her name; and perhaps,
thanks to her, to unravel the mystery which still enveloped the murder.

"_Heuh!_ That is not very precise information," thought the police
officer. But it at least awoke Bernardet's curiosity and intelligence.
It solved no problem, but it put one. M. de Sartines's famous "_search
for the woman_" came naturally to Paul Rodier's pen. And he finished the
article with some details about Jacques Dantin, the intimate, the only
friend of Louis Pierre Rovere; and the reporter, when he had written
this, was still ignorant that Dantin was under arrest.

"To-morrow," said Bernardet to himself, "he will give us Dantin's
biography. He tells me nothing new in his report. And yet"----He folded
up the paper and laid it on the table, and while sipping his cordial he
thought of that mysterious visitor--the woman in black--and told
himself that truly the trail must be there. He would see Moniche and his
wife again; he would question them; he would make a thorough search.

"But what for? We have the guilty man. It is a hundred to one that the
assassin is behind bars. The woman might be an accomplice."

Then Bernardet, filled with passion for his profession, rather than
vanity--this artist in a police sense; this lover of art for art's
sake--rubbed his hands and silently applauded himself because he had
insisted, and, as it were, compelled M. Ginory and the doctors to adopt
his idea. He, the humble, unknown sub-officer, standing back and simply
striving to do his duty, had influenced distinguished persons as
powerful as magistrates and members of the Academy. They had obeyed his
suggestion. The little Bernardet felt that he had done a glorious deed.
He had experienced a strong conviction, which would not be denied. He
had proved that what had been considered only a chimera was a reality.
He had accomplished a seeming impossibility. He had evoked the dead
man's secret even from the tomb.

"And M. Ginory thinks that it will not help his candidature at the
Academy? He will wear the green robe, and he will owe it to me. There
are others who owe me something, too."

With his faculty for believing in his dreams, of seeing his visions
appear, realized and living--a faculty