so on. Finally he disappeared, leaving no
address."

"And this customer?"

"I will give you his name without the slightest hesitation. Fritzner,
not an Alsacian as I believed, but a Prussian to a certainty, who surely
struck the blow; his disappearance the day after the crime is the proof
of it."

"You say that you were not able to procure his address?"

"But you, who have other means at your disposal, can find him. He is
twenty-seven or thirty years old, of middle height, blue eyes, a blond
beard, and a complete blue suit of this cloth."

The agent wrote this description in his note-book as the tailor gave it
to him.

"If he has not left Paris with these stolen thirty-five thousand francs,
we shall find him, and the thanks will be yours," he said.

"I am happy to be able to do anything for you."

The agent was going, but he thought better of it.

"You said that you had made three suits of this cloth?"

"Yes, but there is only this Fritzner who counts. The two others are
honest men, well known in the quarter, and they paid me honestly."

"Since they have no cause for alarm, you need have no scruples in naming
them. It is not in the name of justice that I ask their names, but for
myself.--They will look well in my report and will prove that I pushed
my investigations thoroughly."

"One is a merchant in the Rue Truffant, and is called Monsieur Blanchet;
the other is a young man just arrived from America, and his name is
Monsieur Florentin Cormier."

"You say Florentin Cormier?" the agent asked, who remembered this name
was that of one who had seen Caffie on the day of the crime. "Do you
know him?"

"Not exactly; it is the first time that I have made clothes for him. But
I know his mother and sister, who have lived in the Rue des Moines five
or six years at least; good, honest people, who work hard and have no
debts."

The next morning about ten o'clock, a short time after Phillis's
departure, Florentin, who was reading the newspaper in the dining-room,
while his mother prepared the breakfast, heard stealthy steps that
stopped on the landing before their door. His ear was too familiar with
the ordinary sounds in the house to be deceived; there was in these
steps a hesitation or a precaution which evidently betrayed a stranger,
and with the few connections they had, a stranger was surely an
enemy--the one whom he expected.

A ring of the doorbell, given by a firm hand, made him jump from his
chair. He