you hear me, close your eyelids."

The eyelids were lowered. But was it not merely chance? Don Luis went on:

"You have found the heirs of the Roussel sisters, that much we know; and
it is two of those heirs who are threatened with death. The double murder
is to be committed to-night. But what we do not know is the name of those
heirs, who are doubtless not called Roussel. You must tell us the name.

"Listen to me: you wrote on a memorandum pad three letters which seem to
form the syllable Fau.... Am I right? Is this the first syllable of a
name? Which is the next letter after those three? Close your eyes when I
mention the right letter. Is it 'b?' Is it 'c?'"

But there was now not a flicker in the inspector's pallid face. The head
dropped heavily on the chest. Verot gave two or three sighs, his frame
shook with one great shiver, and he moved no more.

He was dead.

The tragic scene had been enacted so swiftly that the men who were
its shuddering spectators remained for a moment confounded. The
solicitor made the sign of the cross and went down on his knees. The
Prefect murmured:

"Poor Verot!... He was a good man, who thought only of the service, of
his duty. Instead of going and getting himself seen to--and who knows?
Perhaps he might have been saved--he came back here in the hope of
communicating his secret. Poor Verot!--"

"Was he married? Are there any children?" asked Don Luis.

"He leaves a wife and three children," replied the Prefect.

"I will look after them," said Don Luis simply.

Then, when they brought a doctor and when M. Desmalions gave orders for
the corpse to be carried to another room, Don Luis took the doctor
aside and said:

"There is no doubt that Inspector Verot was poisoned. Look at his
wrist: you will see the mark of a puncture with a ring of inflammation
round it."

"Then he was pricked in that place?"

"Yes, with a pin or the point of a pen; and not as violently as they may
have wished, because death did not ensue until some hours later."

The messengers removed the corpse; and soon there was no one left in the
office except the five people whom the Prefect had originally sent for.
The American Secretary of Embassy and the Peruvian attache, considering
their continued presence unnecessary, went away, after warmly
complimenting Don Luis Perenna on his powers of penetration.

Next came the turn of Major d'Astrignac, who shook his former subordinate
by the hand with obvious af