s
unceremoniously showed in a man in whom Peyrade and Contenson both at
once discerned a gendarme in mufti.

"Monsieur Peyrade," said the gendarme to the nabob, speaking in his ear,
"my instructions are to take you to the Prefecture."

Peyrade, without saying a word, rose and took down his hat.

"You will find a hackney coach at the door," said the man as they went
downstairs. "The Prefet thought of arresting you, but he decided on
sending for you to ask some explanation of your conduct through the
peace-officer whom you will find in the coach."

"Shall I ride with you?" asked the gendarme of the peace-officer when
Peyrade had got in.

"No," replied the other; "tell the coachman quietly to drive to the
Prefecture."

Peyrade and Carlos were now face to face in the coach. Carlos had a
stiletto under his hand. The coach-driver was a man he could trust,
quite capable of allowing Carlos to get out without seeing him, or being
surprised, on arriving at his journey's end, to find a dead body in
his cab. No inquiries are ever made about a spy. The law almost always
leaves such murders unpunished, it is so difficult to know the rights of
the case.

Peyrade looked with his keenest eye at the magistrate sent to examine
him by the Prefet of Police. Carlos struck him as satisfactory: a bald
head, deeply wrinkled at the back, and powdered hair; a pair of very
light gold spectacles, with double-green glasses over weak eyes, with
red rims, evidently needing care. These eyes seemed the trace of some
squalid malady. A cotton shirt with a flat-pleated frill, a shabby
black satin waistcoat, the trousers of a man of law, black spun silk
stockings, and shoes tied with ribbon; a long black overcoat, cheap
gloves, black, and worn for ten days, and a gold watch-chain--in every
point the lower grade of magistrate known by a perversion of terms as a
peace-officer.

"My dear Monsieur Peyrade, I regret to find such a man as you the object
of surveillance, and that you should act so as to justify it. Your
disguise is not to the Prefet's taste. If you fancy that you can thus
escape our vigilance, you are mistaken. You traveled from England by way
of Beaumont-sur-Oise, no doubt."

"Beaumont-sur-Oise?" repeated Peyrade.

"Or by Saint-Denis?" said the sham lawyer.

Peyrade lost his presence of mind. The question must be answered. Now
any reply might be dangerous. In the affirmative it was farcical; in the
negative, if this man knew the tr