ched himself upon
the sofa, Juve looked at the pale and nervous and completely silent boy,
and said with even greater gentleness: "There, go to sleep; sleep
quietly, and presently----"

Juve left the room, and called a man to whom he gave an order in a low
tone.

"Stay with that gentleman, please. He is a friend of mine, but a friend,
you understand, who must not leave this place. I am going to see some
one, but I will come up again presently," and Juve hurried downstairs to
the parlour.

The visitor rose as the door opened, and Juve made a formal bow.

"M. Gervais Aventin?" he said.

"M. Gervais Aventin," that gentleman replied. "And you are
Detective-Inspector Juve?"

"I am, sir," the detective answered, and pointing his visitor to a chair
he took a seat himself at a small table littered with official
documents.

"Sir," Juve began, "I ventured to send you that pressing invitation to
come to Paris to-day, because from enquiries I had made about you, I was
sure that you were a man with a sense of duty, who would not resent
being put to inconvenience when it was a question of co-operating in a
work of justice and of truth."

The visitor, a man of perhaps thirty, of somewhat fashionable appearance
and careful though quiet dress, manifested much surprise.

"Enquiries about me, sir? And pray, why? I must confess that I was very
much astonished when I received your letter informing me that the famous
Detective-Inspector Juve wished to see me, and at first I suspected some
practical joke. On consideration I decided to obey your summons without
further pressing, but I did not imagine that you would have made any
enquiries about me. How do you know me, may I ask?"

Juve smiled.

"Is it the fact," he enquired, instead of replying directly, for like
the good detective that he was, intensely keen on his work, he enjoyed
mystifying people with whom he conversed, "is it the fact that your name
is Gervais Aventin? A civil engineer? The possessor of considerable
private means? About to be married? And that lately you made a short
journey to Limoges?"

The young man nodded and smiled.

"Your information is perfectly correct in every particular. But I do not
yet understand what crime of mine can have subjected me to these
enquiries on your part."

Juve smiled again.

"I wondered, sir, why you vouchsafed no answer to the local enquiries
which have been made at my instance, to the advertisements which I have
had inse