in,--a murderer! It was he who pushed me into the river!"

"Oho!"

"It is true! That man is a fiend,--an assassin! I am ready to tell
everything, monsieur! Everything!"

Not for love of truth,--not for fear of law,--but for the love of a
dog.

In this mood she was encouraged by all the wiles and insinuating ways
known to the professional student of human nature. So that, when
Fouchette reached the Prefecture, she had not only imparted valuable
information, she had astounded her official auditor. Not altogether by
what she had revealed, but quite as much by her precocious cleverness
and judgment.

She was taken at once before Inspector Loup, of the Secret Service.

Fouchette was not in the least intimidated when she found herself
closeted alone with this mighty personage. For she did not know the
extraordinary power wielded by Inspector Loup, and was in equal
ignorance of the stenographer behind the screen. She was thinking only
of her revenge. She had sworn, mentally, to have the head of le
Cochon. She would see him writhing under the guillotine. Not because
he had tried to drown her,--she would never have betrayed him for
that,--but because he had murdered her dog. She would have vengeance.
She would have overlooked his cowardly butchery of a stranger in the
wood of Vincennes; but for the killing of Tartar she was ready and
eager to see the head of le Cochon fall in the Place de la Roquette.

Therefore Fouchette confronted Inspector Loup intent upon her own
wrongs, and with a face which might have been deemed impudent but for
its premature hardness.

Inspector Loup was a tall, thin man, with small, keen, fishy
eyes,--so small they seemed like beads, all pupil, so keen they
glistened like diamonds, so fishy they appeared to swim round in two
heavily fringed ponds. And they were always swimming,--indolently, as
if it were not really worth while, but still leaving the vague and
sometimes uncomfortable impression that they were on you, under you,
around you, through you; that they were weighing you, analyzing you,
and knew what was in your mind and stomach, as well as the contents of
your inside pockets.

It was the habit of Inspector Loup to turn these peculiar orbs upon
whoever came under his personal jurisdiction for a minute or two
without uttering a word, though usually before that time had expired
the individual had succumbed to their mysterious influence and was
ready to make a clean breast of it.

The