ons?" replied the officer.
"Men rarely have any left at your age!"

"Rid me of them!" cried the Councillor.

"You will curse the physician later," replied the officer, smiling.

"I beg of you, monsieur."

"Well, then, that woman was in collusion with her husband."

"Oh!----"

"Yes, sir, and so it is in two cases out of every ten. Oh! we know it
well."

"What proof have you of such a conspiracy?"

"In the first place, the husband!" said the other, with the calm acumen
of a surgeon practised in unbinding wounds. "Mean speculation is stamped
in every line of that villainous face. But you, no doubt, set great
store by a certain letter written by that woman with regard to the
child?"

"So much so, that I always have it about me," replied Hulot, feeling in
his breast-pocket for the little pocketbook which he always kept there.

"Leave your pocketbook where it is," said the man, as crushing as a
thunder-clap. "Here is the letter.--I now know all I want to know.
Madame Marneffe, of course, was aware of what that pocketbook
contained?"

"She alone in the world."

"So I supposed.--Now for the proof you asked for of her collusion with
her husband."

"Let us hear!" said the Baron, still incredulous.

"When we came in here, Monsieur le Baron, that wretched creature
Marneffe led the way, and he took up this letter, which his wife,
no doubt, had placed on this writing-table," and he pointed to the
_bonheur-du-jour_. "That evidently was the spot agreed upon by the
couple, in case she should succeed in stealing the letter while you were
asleep; for this letter, as written to you by the lady, is, combined
with those you wrote to her, decisive evidence in a police-court."

He showed Hulot the note that Reine had delivered to him in his private
room at the office.

"It is one of the documents in the case," said the police-agent; "return
it to me, monsieur."

"Well, monsieur," replied Hulot with bitter expression, "that woman is
profligacy itself in fixed ratios. I am certain at this moment that she
has three lovers."

"That is perfectly evident," said the officer. "Oh, they are not all
on the streets! When a woman follows that trade in a carriage and
a drawing-room, and her own house, it is not a case for francs and
centimes, Monsieur le Baron. Mademoiselle Esther, of whom you spoke,
and who poisoned herself, made away with millions.--If you will take
my advice, you will get out of it, monsieur. This last little ga