e's party started for the
Morgue,--only a short journey,--where they were presently received
with every mark of respect and consideration.

The keeper, or officer in charge, was summoned, and came out
bareheaded to the fiacre, bowing low before his distinguished
visitors.

"Good morning, La Peche," said M. Flocon in a sharp voice. "We
have come for an identification. The body from the Lyons Station
--he of the murder in the sleeping-car--is it yet arrived?"

"But surely, at your service, Chief," replied the old man,
obsequiously. "If the gentlemen will give themselves the trouble
to enter the office, I will lead them behind, direct into the
mortuary chamber. There are many people in yonder."

It was the usual crowd of sightseers passing slowly before the
plate glass of this, the most terrible shop-front in the world,
where the goods exposed, the merchandise, are hideous corpses laid
out in rows upon the marble slabs, the battered, tattered remnants
of outraged humanity, insulted by the most terrible indignities in
death.

Who make up this curious throng, and what strange morbid motives
drag them there? Those fat, comfortable-looking women, with their
baskets on their arms; the decent workmen in dusty blouses, idling
between the hours of work; the riffraff of the streets, male or
female, in various stages of wretchedness and degradation? A few,
no doubt, are impelled by motives we cannot challenge--they are
torn and tortured by suspense, trembling lest they may recognize
missing dear ones among the exposed; others stare carelessly at
the day's "take," wondering, perhaps, if they may come to the same
fate; one or two are idle sightseers, not always French, for the
Morgue is a favourite haunt with the irrepressible tourist doing
Paris. Strangest of all, the murderer himself, the doer of the
fell deed, comes here, to the very spot where his victim lies
stark and reproachful, and stares at it spellbound, fascinated,
filled more with remorse, perchance, than fear at the risk he
runs. So common is this trait, that in mysterious murder cases the
police of Paris keep a disguised officer among the crowd at the
Morgue, and have thereby made many memorable arrests.

"This way, gentlemen, this way;" and the keeper of the Morgue led
the party through one or two rooms into the inner and back
recesses of the buildings. It was behind the scenes of the Morgue,
and they were made free of its most gruesome secrets as they
passed