“As to being dead, he was dead right enough! The doctor will tell you so, too; also my colleague, Favril, who helped me to lay out the body on the bed.”

“But how can a dead body get away from here? If he was dead, he could not have escaped!” said the magistrate.

“It’s witchcraft!” declared the warder, with a shrug.

Fuselier flew into a rage:

“Had you not better confess that you and your colleagues did not keep proper watch? The investigation will show on whose shoulders the responsibility rests.”

“But, sakes alive, monsieur! “ expostulated the warder. “There aren’t only two of us who have seen him dead!... There are all the hospital attendants of the Dépôt as well!... There’s the doctor, and there are my colleagues to be counted in: the truth is, monsieur, some fifty persons have seen him dead!”

“So you say!” cried the impatient magistrate. “I am going to inform the Public Prosecutor of what has happened, and at once!”

As he was hurrying away, he spied Jérôme Fandor, who had not missed a single detail of the scene.

“You again!” exclaimed the irate magistrate. “How did you get in here?

“By permit,” replied our journalist.

“Well, you have learned what there is to know, haven’t you? Be off then! You are one too many here!...

Frankly, there is no need for you to worsen the scandal!...

Will you, therefore, be kind enough to take yourself off?” And Fuselier, almost beside himself with rage, raced off to the Public Prosecutor’s office.

After the magistrate’s furious attack, Fandor could not possibly linger in the corridors of the Dépôt. The warders, too, were pressing their attentions on him and on Elizabeth Dollon:

“This way, monsieur!... Madame, this way! Ah, it’s a wretched business!... Here, this way! This way!... Be off, as fast as you can!”

Soon Fandor was descending the grand staircase of the Palais, steadying the uncertain steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon.“I implore you to help me!” she cried. “Help me: help us! My brother is guiltless – I could swear to that!... He must – must be found!... This hideous nightmare must end!”

“Mademoiselle, I would like nothing better, only...

where to find him?”

“Ah, I have no idea, none ... I implore you, you who must know influential people in high places, do not leave any stone unturned, do all that is humanly possible to save him – to save us!”

Intensely moved by the poor girl’s anguish of mind, Fandor could not trust himself to speak. He merely bent his head in the affirmative. Hailing a cab, he put her into it, and gave the address to the driver; as he was closing the door Elizabeth cried:

“Do all that is humanly possible – do everything in the world!”

“I swear to you I will get at the truth,” was Fandor’s parting promise. The cab had disappeared, but the journalist stood motionless, absorbed in his reflections. At last, uttering his thoughts aloud, he said: