character.

The Baroness de Vibray visited them frequently, and her motor-car used
to attract attention in that high, remote suburb--the wilds of
Montmartre. The old lady liked to dress in rather showy colours; she was
considered eccentric, but was also known to be good and generous. She
took a particular interest in the Dollons, whose family, so it was said,
she had known in Provence. Jacques Dollon and his sister highly valued
their intimacy with the Baroness de Vibray, who was known all over Paris
as a patroness of artists and the arts.

_First Verifications_

Already slander and imagination between them had concocted the wildest
stories, when Monsieur Agram, the eminent police superintendent of the
Clignancourt Quarter, appeared at the entrance to the Close. Accompanied
by his secretary, he at once entered Number 6, charging the two
policemen, who were assisting him, on no account to allow anyone to
enter, excepting the doctor, whom he had at once sent for.

He requested the portress to hold herself at his disposal in the garden,
and made Madame Beju accompany him to the studio. Barely twenty minutes
had elapsed since the housekeeper had been terror-struck by the dreadful
spectacle which had met her eyes there. When she entered with the
superintendent of police nothing had been altered. Madame de Vibray,
horribly pale, her eyes closed, her lips violet-hued, lay stretched on
the floor: her body had assumed the rigidity of a corpse. That of
Jacques Dollon, huddled in an arm-chair, was in a state of immobility.

Monsieur Agram at once noticed long, intersecting streaks on the floor,
such as might have been traced by heavy furniture dragged over the waxed
boards of the flooring. A pungent medicinal odour caught the throats of
the visitors: Madame Beju was about to open a window: the superintendent
stopped her:

'Let things remain as they are for the present,' was his order. After
casting an observant eye round the room he questioned the housekeeper:

'Is this state of disorder usual?'

'Never in this world, sir!' declared the good woman. 'Monsieur Dollon
and his sister are very steady, very regular in their habits, especially
the young lady. It is true that she has been absent for nearly a month,
but her brother has often been left alone, and he has always insisted on
his studio being kept in good order.'

'Did Monsieur Dollon have many visitors?'

'Very seldom, monsieur. Sometimes