along.

The temperature had suddenly fallen far below freezing-point, and
the icy cold chilled to the very marrow. Still worse was an
all-pervading, acrid odour of artificially suspended animal decay. The
cold-air process, that latest of scientific contrivances to arrest
the waste of tissue, has now been applied at the Morgue to
preserve and keep the bodies fresh, and allow them to be for a
longer time exposed than when running water was the only aid.
There are, moreover, many specially contrived refrigerating
chests, in which those still unrecognized corpses are laid by for
months, to be dragged out, if needs be, like carcasses of meat.

"What a loathsome place!" cried Sir Charles. "Hurry up, Jack! let
us get out of this, in Heaven's name!"

"Where's my man?" quickly asked Colonel Papillon in response to
this appeal.

"There, the third from the left," whispered M. Flocon. "We hoped
you would recognize the corpse at once."

"That? Impossible! You do not expect it, surely? Why, the face is
too much mangled for any one to say who it is."

"Are there no indications, no marks or signs, to say whether it is
Quadling or not?" asked the Judge in a greatly disappointed tone.

"Absolutely nothing. And yet I am quite satisfied it is not him.
For the simple reason that--"

"Yes, yes, go on."

"That Quadling in person is standing out there among the crowd."

CHAPTER XX

M. Flocon was the first to realize the full meaning of Colonel
Papillon's surprising statement.

"Run, run, La Peche! Have the outer doors closed; let no one leave
the place."

"Draw back, gentlemen!" he went on, and he hustled his companions
with frantic haste out at the back of the mortuary chamber. "Pray
Heaven he has not seen us! He would know us, even if we do not
him."

Then with no less haste he seized Colonel Papillon by the arm and
hurried him by the back passages through the office into the
outer, public chamber, where the astonished crowd stood, silent
and perturbed, awaiting explanation of their detention.

"Quick, monsieur!" whispered the Chief; "point him out to me."

The request was not unnecessary, for when Colonel Papillon went
forward, and, putting his hand on a man's shoulder, saying, "Mr.
Quadling, I think," the police officer was scarcely able to
restrain his surprise.

The person thus challenged was very unlike any one he had seen
before that day, Ripaldi most of all. The moustache was gone, the
clothes were entirely