, and spending whole days in his easy chair or upon his lounge,
while Mme. Moniche read the daily papers to him.

"When I say that he saw no one," said the porter, "I make a mistake.
There was that gentleman"----

And he looked at his wife.

"What gentleman?"

Mme. Moniche shook her head, as if he ought not to answer.

"Of whom do you speak?" repeated the Commissary, looking at both of
them.

At this moment, Bernardet, standing on the threshold of the library
adjoining the salon, looked searchingly about the room in which M.
Rovere ordinarily spent his time, and which he had probably left to meet
his fate. His ear was as quick to hear as his eye to see, and as he
heard the question he softly approached and listened for the answer.

"What gentleman? and what did he do?" asked the Commissary, a little
brusquely, for he noticed a hesitation to reply in both Moniche and his
wife.

"Well, and what does this mean?"

"Oh, well, Monsieur le Commissaire, it is this--perhaps it means
nothing," and the concierge went on to tell how, one evening, a very
fine gentleman, and very polished, moreover, had come to the house and
asked to see M. Rovere; he had gone to his apartment, and had remained a
long time. It was, he thought, about the middle of October, and Mme.
Moniche, who had gone upstairs to light the gas, met the man as he was
coming out of M. Rovere's rooms, and had noticed at the first glance the
troubled air of the individual. (Moniche already called the gentleman
_the 'individual,'_) who was very pale and whose eyes were red.

Then, at some time or other, the individual had made another visit to M.
Rovere. More than once the portress had tried to learn his name. Up to
this moment she had not succeeded. One day she asked M. Rovere who it
was, and he very shortly asked her what business it was of hers. She did
not insist, but she watched the individual with a vague doubt.

"Instinct. Monsieur; my instinct told me"----

"Enough," interrupted M. Desbriere; "if we had only instinct to guide us
we should make some famous blunders."

"Oh, it was not only by instinct, Monsieur."

"Ah! ah! let us hear it"----

Bernardet, with his eyes fastened upon Mme. Moniche, did not lose a
syllable of her story, which her husband occasionally interrupted to
correct her or to complete a statement, or to add some detail. The
corpse, with mouth open and fiery, ferocious eyes, seemed also to
listen.

Mme. Moniche, as we already