Lerouge, Monsieur le Commissaire."

"Ah! I think we have had the pleasure of meeting before this,"
observed the official. "A hundred francs that this is our man," he
added under his breath. Then, turning to his men, who had stolen in,
shamefaced, one by one,--

"Dubat!"

"Yes, monsieur." A keen-eyed agent stepped forward and saluted
military fashion.

"Do you recognize one of these gentlemen as the man who crossed the
Pont de Solferino this evening with something----"

"Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire,"--pointing promptly to Henri
Lerouge,--"that's the man!"

"So. You may step aside, Dubat. Now where is that--oh! Monsieur
Perriot?"

"Monsieur le Commissaire," responded the unhappy cabman, who had
scarcely recovered from his mishap in the stairway. He limped
painfully to the front.

"Now, Perriot, do you----"

"There he is, Monsieur le Commissaire," anticipated the cabman. "I'd
know him among a thousand."

"Ah! And there we are. I thought so!" said the police official. "Now,
Monsieur Lerouge," facing the latter with a catlike eye, "where's the
body?"

The young man looked puzzled, very naturally, while his companions
were speechless with astonishment.

The veteran police officer took in every detail of this and mentally
admitted that it was clever, deucedly clever, acting.

"I say, _where is the body_?" he repeated.

"And I say," retorted Lerouge, with a calmness of tone and steadiness
of eye that almost staggered the old criminal catcher, "that I do not
understand you, and am very patiently awaiting your explanation."

"Search the place!" curtly commanded the officer.

A clamorous protest arose from all three of the students. But the
commissary of police waved them aside.

"It means that this man, Henri Lerouge, between six and seven o'clock
this evening, carried a dead body from the Rue St. Honore----"

"Faubourg St. Honore, Monsieur le Commissaire," interrupted the
cabman, feebly.

"----Faubourg St. Honore, crossed the Pont de Solferino, where he was
seen by Agent Dubat, and was brought here in a voiture of place, No.
37,420, driven by Jacques Perriot. That, arriving in front of this
building, the said Lerouge paid the cabman and dismissed----"

"Pardon, Monsieur le Commissaire," again put in the coachman,--who
was evidently trying to do his duty under unfavorable
circumstances,--"pardon, monsieur, but he told me to wait."

"Oh, he told you to wait, did he? And why didn't you say that at the