and
consent. I am prepared to give an _ordonnance de non-lieu_ in your
favour which will have the effect of at once setting you free if you
will restore to this gentleman here the Mont de Piete receipt which
you appear to have stolen."

"Sir," I said with consummate dignity in the face of this reiterated
taunt, "I have stolen nothing--"

M. le Juge's hand was already on the bell-pull.

"Then," he said coolly, "I can ring for the gendarmes to take you back
to the cells, and you will stand your trial for blackmail, theft,
assault and robbery."

I put up my hand with an elegant and perfectly calm gesture.

"Your pardon, M. le Juge," I said with the gentle resignation of
undeserved martyrdom, "I was about to say that when I re-visited my
rooms in the Rue Daunou after a three days' absence, and found the
police in possession, I picked up on the floor of my private room a
white paper which on subsequent examination proved to be a receipt
from the Mont de Piete for some valuable gems, and made out in the
name of M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour."

"What have you done with it, you abominable knave?" the irascible old
usurer rejoined roughly, and I regret to say that he grasped his
malacca cane with ominous violence.

But I was not to be thus easily intimidated.

"Ah! voila, M. le Juge," I said with a shrug of the shoulders. "I have
mislaid it. I do not know where it is."

"If you do not find it," Mosenstein went on savagely, "you will find
yourself on a convict ship before long."

"In which case, no doubt," I retorted with suave urbanity, "the police
will search my rooms where I lodge, and they will find the receipt
from the Mont de Piete, which I had mislaid. And then the gossip will
be all over Paris that Mme. la Marquise de Firmin-Latour had to pawn
her jewels in order to satisfy the exigencies of her first and only
lawful husband who has since mysteriously disappeared; and some people
will vow that he never came back from the Antipodes, whilst others--by
far the most numerous--will shrug their shoulders and sigh: 'One never
knows!' which will be exceedingly unpleasant for Mme. la Marquise."

Both M. Mauruss Mosenstein and the juge d'instruc-tion said a great
deal more that afternoon. I may say that their attitude towards me and
the language that they used were positively scandalous. But I had
become now the master of the situation and I could afford to ignore
their insults. In the end everything was settled qui