"That's sure," the old woman agreed. "He's dressed like a gentleman."

The two looked at each other in silence. Bouzille was not nearly so
complacent as he had been a few minutes before. The reward of
twenty-five francs prompted him to go at once to inform the police; the
idea of a crime, suggested by the worthy woman, disturbed him greatly,
and all the more because he thought it was well founded. Another murder
in the neighbourhood would certainly vex the authorities, and put the
police in a bad temper. Bouzille knew from experience that the first
thing people do after a tragedy is to arrest all the tramps, and that if
the police are at all crotchety they always contrive to get the tramps
sentenced for something else. He had had a momentary inclination to
establish his winter quarters in prison, but since then he had formed
the plan of going to Paris, and liberty appealed to him more. He reached
a sudden decision.

"I'll punt him back into the water!"

But mother Chiquard stayed him, just as he was putting his idea into
execution.

"You mustn't: suppose somebody has seen us already? It would land us in
no end of trouble!"

Half an hour later, convinced that it was his melancholy duty, Bouzille
left two-thirds of his train in mother Chiquard's custody, got astride
his prehistoric tricycle and slowly pedalled off towards Saint-Jaury.

* * * * *

New Year's Day is a melancholy and a tedious one for everybody whose
public or private relations do not make it an exceptionally interesting
one. There is the alteration in the date, for one thing, which is
provocative of thought, and there is the enforced idleness for another,
coming upon energetic folk like a temporary paralysis and leaving them
nothing but meditation wherewith to employ themselves.

Juve, comfortably installed in his own private study, was realising this
just as evening was falling on this first of January. He was a confirmed
bachelor, and for several years had lived in a little flat on the fifth
floor of an old house in the rue Bonaparte. He had not gone out to-day,
but though he was resting he was not idle. For a whole month past he had
been wholly engrossed in his attempt to solve the mystery surrounding
the two cases on which he was engaged, the Beltham case, and the
Langrune case, and his mind was leisurely revolving round them now as he
sat in his warm room before a blazing wood fire, and watched the blue
smoke c