ttered sometimes at night by the cat of an old woman,--Mother
Angenoux, as she is called in the country. Mother Angenoux is a sort of
saint, who lives in a hut in the heart of the forest, not far from the
grotto of Sainte-Genevieve.

"The Yellow Room, the Bete Du Bon Dieu, Mother Angenoux, the Devil,
Sainte-Genevieve, Daddy Jacques,--here is a well entangled crime which
the stroke of a pickaxe in the wall may disentangle for us to-morrow.
Let us at least hope that, for the sake of our human reason, as the
examining magistrate says. Meanwhile, it is expected that Mademoiselle
Stangerson--who has not ceased to be delirious and only pronounces
one word distinctly, 'Murderer! Murderer!'--will not live through the
night."

In conclusion, and at a late hour, the same journal announced that the
Chief of the Surete had telegraphed to the famous detective, Frederic
Larsan, who had been sent to London for an affair of stolen securities,
to return immediately to Paris.

CHAPTER II. In Which Joseph Roultabille Appears for the First Time

I remember as well as if it had occurred yesterday, the entry of young
Rouletabille into my bedroom that morning. It was about eight o'clock
and I was still in bed reading the article in the "Matin" relative to
the Glandier crime.

But, before going further, it is time that I present my friend to the
reader.

I first knew Joseph Rouletabille when he was a young reporter. At that
time I was a beginner at the Bar and often met him in the corridors of
examining magistrates, when I had gone to get a "permit to communicate"
for the prison of Mazas, or for Saint-Lazare. He had, as they say, "a
good nut." He seemed to have taken his head--round as a bullet--out of
a box of marbles, and it is from that, I think, that his comrades of
the press--all determined billiard-players--had given him that nickname,
which was to stick to him and be made illustrious by him. He was always
as red as a tomato, now gay as a lark, now grave as a judge. How, while
still so young--he was only sixteen and a half years old when I saw him
for the first time--had he already won his way on the press? That was
what everybody who came into contact with him might have asked, if they
had not known his history. At the time of the affair of the woman cut in
pieces in the Rue Oberskampf--another forgotten story--he had taken to
one of the editors of the "Epoque,"--a paper then rivalling the "Matin"
for information,--the le