life's
pageant was abhorrent to the nature of Aristide Pujol.

Moodily he wandered away from the little crowd. He hated the police and
their airs of gods for whom exists no mystery. He did not believe in the
kitchen-door theory. Why should not the thief have simply entered by the
window of the study, which like the kitchen, was on the ground floor? He
went round the house and examined the window by himself. No; there were
no traces of burglary. The fastenings of the outside shutters and the
high window were intact. The police were right.

Suddenly his quick eye lit on something in the gravel path and his heart
gave a great leap. It was a little round pink disc of confetti.

Aristide picked it up and began to dance and shake his fist at the
invisible police.

"Aha!" he cried, "now we shall see who is right and who is wrong!"

He began to search and soon found another bit of confetti. A little
further along he discovered a third and a fourth. By using his walking
stick he discovered that they formed a trail to a point in the wall. He
examined the wall. There, if his eyes did not deceive him, were
evidences of mortar dislodged by nefarious toes. And there, _mirabile
visu!_ at the very bottom of the wall lay a little woollen pompon or
tassel, just the kind of pompon that gives a finish to a pierrot's
shoes. Evidently the scoundrel had scraped it off against the bricks
while clambering over.

The pig-headed masquer stood confessed.

A less imaginative man than Aristide would have immediately acquainted
the police with his discovery. But Aristide had been insulted. A dull,
mechanical bureaucrat who tried to discover crime with a tape-measure
had dared to talk contemptuously of his intelligence! On his wooden head
should be poured the vials of his contempt.

"_Tron de l'air!_" cried Aristide--a Provencal oath which he only used
on sublime occasions--"It is I who will discover the thief and make the
whole lot of you the laughing-stock of Perpignan."

So did my versatile friend, joyously confident in his powers, start on
his glorious career as a private detective.

"Madame Coquereau," said he, that evening, while she was dealing a hand
at piquet, "what would you say if I solved this mystery and brought the
scoundrel to justice?"

"To say that you would have more sense than the police, would be a poor
compliment," said the old lady.

Stephanie raised cloistral eyes from her embroidery frame. She sat in a
distant co