If you do not fear to climb the heights of Montmartre some evening, will you come to see the painted pottery I am preparing for the Salon? You will be welcome, and will confer on us a great pleasure. I say ‘us’, because I have excellent news of Elizabeth, who is returning shortly: perhaps she will be here to receive you with me.

I am your respectful and devoted

Jacques Dollon.

The magistrate was frowning as he handed back the letter to his secretary, saying: ‘Keep it carefully.’ Then he went into the bedroom, where the doctor was talking to the sick young man. The doctor turned to Monsieur Agram:

‘Monsieur Dollon has just asked me who you are: I did not think I ought to hide from him that you are a superintendent of police, monsieur.’

‘Ah!’ cried Jacques Dollon. ‘Can you help me to discover what happened to me last night?

‘You have just told us yourself, monsieur,’ replied the magistrate... ‘But have you nothing further to tell us?

Can you not recollect whether or not you had a visitor before the arrival of the men who attacked you?’

‘Why no, monsieur, no one called.’

The doctor here intervened:

‘The pain in the leg, Monsieur Dollon complained of, need not cause any anxiety. It is a very slight superficial wound. A slight swelling above the broken skin possibly indicates an intra-muscular injection, which might have been made by someone unaccustomed to such operations, for it is a clumsy job. This is a queer business...’

Monsieur Agram, who had been steadily observing Jacques Dollon, persisted:

‘Is there not a gap, monsieur, in your recollections of what occurred?... Were you quite alone yesterday evening?

Were you not expecting anyone?... Are you certain that you did not have a visitor? Did not someone pay you a visit – someone you had asked to come and see you?’

Jacques Dollon opened his eyes – eyes of stupefaction – and stared at the superintendent:

‘No, monsieur.’

‘It is that–’ went on Monsieur Agram. Then stopping short, and drawing the doctor aside, he asked:

‘Do you consider him in a fit state to bear a severe moral shock?... A confrontation?’

The doctor glanced at his patient:

‘He appears to me to be quite himself again: you can act as you see fit, monsieur.’

Jacques Dollon, astonished at this conference, and vaguely uneasy, was, in fact, able to get up without help.

‘Be good enough to go into your studio, monsieur,’

said the magistrate.

Jacques Dollon complied without a word. No sooner did he cross the threshold than he recoiled, terror-struck.

He was shaking from head to foot; his lips were quivering; every feature expressed horrified shrinking from the spectacle confronting him.

‘The – the – the Baroness de Vibray!’ he barely articulated: ‘how can it be possible?’

The superintendent of police did not miss a single movement made by the young painter, keeping a hawk-eyed watch on every expression that flitted across his countenance. He said: