rushed: he submitted to all the tests without
making the slightest objection; but he never spoke of suicide, never
said anything which could lead one to imagine such a fatal termination."

"Well, he would not cry it aloud on the housetops!... When he left
Monsieur Bertillon, what then?"

"After!... Oh, the police took him to a cell, and left him there. At
midnight the chief warder made his rounds and saw nothing abnormal. It
was in the morning they found this unfortunate Dollon had hanged
himself."

"What did he hang himself with?"

"With strips of his shirt twisted into a rope.... Oh, my dear fellow, I
see what you are thinking! You fancy that there has been a want of
common prudence--that the warders were lax--that they had let him retain
his braces, his cravat or his shoe laces!... Well, it was not
so--precautions were taken."

"And this suicide remains incomprehensible!"

"Well!... This wretched youth must have been ferociously energetic,
because he had fastened these shirt ropes of his to the iron bars of his
bed, and strangled himself by lying on his back. Death must have been
long in coming to release him from his agony."

"Can I not see him?" asked Fandor.

"Why not photograph him?" asked the magistrate in a bantering tone.

"Oh, if it were possible!..." Fandor stopped short. A youth knocked and
entered:

"A lady, who wishes to see you, monsieur."

"Tell her I am too busy."

"She asked me to say that it is urgent."

"Ask her name."

"Here is her card, monsieur."

Monsieur Fuselier looked at the card: he started!

"Elizabeth Dollon!... Ah ... Good Heavens, what am I to say to this poor
girl? How am I to tell her?"

Just then the door was pushed violently open, and a girl, in tears,
rushed towards him:

"Monsieur, where is my brother?"

"But, mademoiselle!..."

Whilst the magistrate mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit
down, Jerome Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room;
he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that
he might be a witness of what promised to be a most exciting interview.

"Pray control yourself, mademoiselle," begged the magistrate. "Your
brother has perhaps been arrested through a mistake...."

"Oh, monsieur, I am sure of it, but it is frightful!"

"Mademoiselle, the dreadful thing would be that he was guilty."

"But they have not set him at liberty yet? He has not been able to clear
himself?"

"Yes, yes, ma