hment was
kept by a woman; and that this woman was no longer young?"

"He did not say that."

"Reflect a moment; you, yourself just told me so."

"Oh, I didn't say that, I'm sure, my good sir."

"Yes, you did, and I will prove it by having your evidence read. Goguet,
read the passage, if you please."

The smiling clerk looked back through his minutes and then, in his
clearest voice, he read these words, taken down as they fell from the
Widow Chupin's lips: "I had been upstairs about half an hour, when I
heard some one below call out 'Eh! old woman.' So I went down," etc.,
etc.

"Are you convinced?" asked M. Segmuller.

The old offender's assurance was sensibly diminished by this proof
of her prevarication. However, instead of discussing the subject any
further, the magistrate glided over it as if he did not attach much
importance to the incident.

"And the other men," he resumed, "those who were killed: did you know
them?"

"No, good sir, no more than I knew Adam and Eve."

"And were you not surprised to see three men utterly unknown to you, and
accompanied by two women, enter your establishment?"

"Sometimes chance--"

"Come! you do not think of what you are saying. It was not chance that
brought these customers, in the middle of the night, to a wine-shop
with a reputation like yours--an establishment situated far from any
frequented route in the midst of a desolate waste."

"I'm not a sorceress; I say what I think."

"Then you did not even know the youngest of the victims, the man who was
attired as a soldier, he who was named Gustave?"

"Not at all."

M. Segmuller noted the intonation of this response, and then slowly
added: "But you must have heard of one of Gustave's friends, a man
called Lacheneur?"

On hearing this name, the landlady of the Poivriere became visibly
embarrassed, and it was in an altered voice that she stammered:
"Lacheneur! Lacheneur! no, I have never heard that name mentioned."

Still despite her denial, the effect of M. Segmuller's remark was
evident, and Lecoq secretly vowed that he would find this Lacheneur, at
any cost. Did not the "articles of conviction" comprise a letter sent by
this man to Gustave, and written, so Lecoq had reason to believe, in
a cafe on the Boulevard Beaumarchais? With such a clue and a little
patience, the mysterious Lacheneur might yet be discovered.

"Now," continued M. Segmuller, "let us speak of the women who
accompanied these unfortunate