or a sign to call the various persons,
free or otherwise, whom the magistrate had to see.

The first bundle caught Juve's attention. It was endorsed "Royal Palace
Hotel Case."

"Anything new about the robbery from Mme. Van den Rosen and Princess
Sonia Danidoff?" he enquired, and as the magistrate shook his head, he
added, "Are you going to examine Muller now?"

"Yes," said the magistrate; "at once."

"And after that you are to examine Gurn, aren't you, in connection with
the Beltham case?"

"Quite so."

"I wish you would oblige me by confronting the two men here, in my
presence."

M. Fuselier looked up in surprise: he could not see what connection
there could be between the two utterly dissimilar cases. What object
could Juve have in wanting the man who had murdered Lord Beltham to be
confronted with the unimportant little hotel servant who had really been
arrested rather as a concession to public opinion than because he was
actually deemed capable of burglary or attempted burglary? Might not
Juve, with his known mania for associating all crimes with each other,
be going just a little too far in the present instance?

"You have got some idea in the back of your head?" said M. Fuselier.

"I've got a--a scar in the palm of my hand," Juve answered with a smile,
and as the magistrate confessed that he failed to understand, Juve
enlightened him. "We know that the man who did that robbery at the Royal
Palace Hotel burned his hand badly when he was cutting the electric
wires in the Princess's bathroom. Well, a few weeks ago, while I was on
the look out for someone with a scar from such a wound, I was told of a
man who was prowling about the slums. I had the fellow followed up, and
the very night the hunt began I was going to arrest him, when, a good
deal to my surprise, I discovered that he was no other than Gurn. He
escaped me that time, but when he was caught later on I found that he
has an unmistakable scar inside the palm of his right hand; it is fading
now, for the burn was only superficial, but it is there. Now do you see
my idea?"

"Yes, I do," the magistrate exclaimed, "and I am all the more glad to
hear of it, since I am to have both the men here now. Shall I have
Muller in first?"

Juve assented....

"So you still refuse to confess?" said the magistrate at last. "You
still maintain that your--extraordinary--order to let the red-haired
waiter out, was given in good faith?"

"Yes, yes, yes, sir," the