Quitting the police station, the two men hailed a cab, and were driven to the rue Norvins.

As far as they could tell, the artist’s house had not been entered since Elizabeth Dollon’s departure.

The neglected garden, with its rank growth of grass and weeds, gave an added air of melancholy to the deserted house. Monsieur Havard put the key in the lock of the front door. “Don’t you think, Fandor, it gives one a queer feeling to enter a house where a heinous and unaccountable crime has been committed?” The key grated in the lock, and Monsieur Havard added:

“In spite of myself, I get the feeling that some terrifying spectre of evil is lurking within!”

“Or a malignant ghost!” said Fandor.

And as the door was unlocked and opened, our journalist asked:

“Where shall we start this little house call ?”

“Let us begin with the studio,” replied Monsieur Havard, climbing to the first floor.

No sooner had they entered the room, than a double cry escaped from the two men.

“Oh...!”

“Great Heavens!”

In the very middle of the studio, there was the rigid body of a man, hanging by the neck.

They rushed forward.

“Dead!” was Monsieur Havard’s cry.

“Horribly dead!” echoed Fandor.

“Shall we never lay hands on those wretches?” Monsieur Havard stared, horrified, at the hanging corpse.

He brought a chair, grasped the strong sharp knife he always carried about him, and, aided by Fandor, he cut the rope, laid the hanged man flat on the floor, and proceeded to examine this miserable, bloated remnant of a human being.

The face was distorted, caved in, gashed, crushed beyond hope of identification.

“The hands have been soaked in vitriol – they did not want fingerprints taken – it is – it must be Jacques Dollon!”

Fandor shook his head.

“Jacques Dollon? Of course it isn’t!... If it were Dollon, he would not hang himself here... and why should he hang himself?”

Monsieur Havard remarked:

“He has not hanged himself. Again the stage has been set!... Look how the skull is smashed.. I could swear this man has been killed by many blows from a blunt instrument, and hanged afterwards! It seems to me, that if death had been caused through strangulation, there would have been severe and bloody furrows round the neck.... But see, Fandor, the rope has hardly made a mark. No, the man was already dead when they strung him up.”

“It is of secondary importance!” remarked Fandor, who was preoccupied.

“You are mistaken: it matters a great deal! It decidedly looks as if Dollon had accomplices, who wished to be rid of him.”

Fandor shook his head.

“Again – it is not Dollon! It cannot be Dollon!”

“Look at the vitriol-soaked hands – that was a precaution.”

“I say, as you did just now: it’s like a set piece – a bit of assassins’ stage craft.”

“And I say, in Dollon’s house, we have found Dollon at home!”