back on the obsolete _Civis
Romanus sum!_ He was an English citizen. He had written to the English
ambassador, or rather to an old St. Gatien's man, an _attache_ of the
embassy, whom he luckily happened to know. But this great ally chanced
to be out of town, and his name availed Maitland nothing in his
interview with the Juge d'Instruction. That magistrate, sitting with his
back to the light, gazed at Maitland with steady, small gray eyes,
while the scribble of the pen of the _greffier_, as he took down the
Englishman's deposition, sounded shrill in the bleak torture-chamber of
the law.

"Your name?" asked the Juge d'Instruction.

"Maitland," replied the Fellow of St. Gatien's.

"You lie!" said the Juge d'Instruction. "You entered the name of
Buchanan in the book of the hotel."

"My name is on my cards, and on that letter," said Maitland, keeping his
temper wonderfully.

The documents in question lay on a table, as _pieces justificatives_.

"These cards, that letter, you have robbed them from some unfortunate
person, and have draped (_affluble_) yourself in the trappings of your
victim! Where is his body?"

This was the working hypothesis which the Juge d'Instruction had formed
within himself to account for the general conduct and proceedings of the
person under examination.

"Where is _whose_ body?" asked Maitland, in unspeakable surprise.

"Buchanan," said the Juge d'Instruction. (And to hear the gallantry
with which he attacked this difficult name, of itself insured respect.)
"Buchanan, you are acting on a deplorable system. Justice is not
deceived by your falsehoods, nor eluded by your subterfuges. She
is calm, stern, but merciful. Unbosom yourself freely" (_repandez
franchement_), "and you may learn that justice can be lenient It is your
interest to be frank." (_Il est de votre interet d'etre franc_.)

"But what do you want me to say?" asked the prevenu, "What is all this
pother about a great-coat?" (_Tant de fracas pour un paletot?_)

Maitland was rather proud of this sentence.

"It is the part of Justice to ask questions, not to answer them,"
said the Juge d'Instruction. "Levity will avail you nothing. Tell me,
Buchanan, why did you ask for the coat at the Hotel Alsace et Lorraine?"

"In answer to that advertisement in the Times."

"That is false; you yourself inserted the advertisement. But, on your
own system, bad as it is, what did you want with the coat?"

"It belonged to a man who had done