ists--was replete with books, bones, and anatomical drawings,
black-and-white and in colors. Two complete skeletons mounted
guard,--one in the farther corner, one behind the door. There were
tables and instrument-cases, and surgical saws and things in racks.
There were easy-chairs, pipes, etc. A skull, with the top neatly sawed
off to serve as cover, formed a tobacco receptacle.

But the chef-d'oeuvre was from Jean's ingenious hand. It was the
bow-backed skeleton behind the door, which had been cleverly arranged
as and was called "Madame la Concierge." The skeleton had been arrayed
in a short conventional ballet skirt and scanty lace cap, and held a
candle in one hand and a bottle marked "Absinthe" in the other. The
skirt was to indicate her earlier career, the cap and candle gave an
inkling of her later life, while the bottle told the probable cause of
her decease. This skeleton was so controlled by wires and cords that
it could be made to move out in front of the open door and raise the
candle above the head, as if to see who asked for admission. When the
room was in semi-darkness Madame la Concierge of Le Petit Rouge was
charmingly effective, and had been known to throw some people into
spasms.

Placing his lamp in a favorable position, Jean Marot pulled off his
coat, removed his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves, and proceeded to
extend his subject upon what young Armand Massard facetiously called
"the dressing-table."

"Good God!" he exclaimed, falling back a step. "Why, it's the
demoiselle of the Place de la Concorde!"

CHAPTER VI

And so it was.

Fouchette had been thrown from the voiture in the conflict, and had
been run over by the mob and trampled into the mud of the gutter. So
covered with the filth of the street was she, so torn and bruised and
bedraggled, that she would have been unrecognizable even to one who
had seen her more often than had her present examiner.

There was something in the girl's face, however, that had left an
impression on the mind of Jean Marot not easily effaced. It was too
indistinct and unemotional, this impression, to inspire analysis, but
it was there, so that, under the lamp, Jean had at once recognized the
young woman of the carriage.

"It's murder, that's what it is," he soliloquized,--"victim of 'Vive
l'armee.'"

A most careful examination showed there were no bones broken, though
the young body was literally black and blue.

The face was that of a prize-fight