smallest possible compass--were next discovered and
pulled out on the floor. After some little difficulty the Sub-prefect
succeeded in putting the machinery together, and, leaving his men to
work it, descended with me to the bedroom. The smothering canopy was
then lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen it lowered. When I
mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was, had a
terrible significance. "My men," said he, "are working down the bed-top
for the first time--the men whose money you won were in better
practise."

We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents--every one
of the inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect,
after taking down my "proces verbal" in his office, returned with me to
my hotel to get my passport. "Do you think," I asked, as I gave it to
him, "that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as they tried
to smother _me_?"

"I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue," answered the
Sub-prefect, "in whose pocketbooks were found letters stating that they
had committed suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everything at
the gaming-table. Do I know how many of those men entered the same
gambling-house that _you_ entered? won as _you_ won? took that bed as
_you_ took it? slept in it? were smothered in it? and were privately
thrown into the river, with a letter of explanation written by the
murderers and placed in their pocketbooks? No man can say how many or
how few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped. The people
of the gambling house kept their bedstead machinery a secret from
us--even from the police! The dead kept the rest of the secret for them.
Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner! Be at my office
again at nine o'clock--in the meantime, au revoir!"

The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and reexamined; the
gambling-house was strictly searched all through from top to bottom; the
prisoners were separately interrogated; and two of the less guilty among
them made a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was the master
of the gambling-house--_justice_ discovered that he had been drummed out
of the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of all
sorts of villainies since; that he was in possession of stolen property,
which the owners identified; and that he, the croupier, another
accomplice, and the woman who had made my cup of coffee, were all in the
s