was conducted into the presence of M. Ginory and his registrar,
and seated upon a chair, he was much confused and less bitter. He felt a
vague terror of all the paraphernalia of justice which surrounded him.
He felt that he was running some great danger, and to the Judge's
questions he replied with extreme prudence. Thanks to him and his wife
M. Ginory found out a great deal about M. Rovere's private life; he
penetrated into that apparently hidden existence, he searched to see if
he could discover, among the people who had visited the old ex-Consul
the one among all others who might have committed the deed.

"You never saw the woman who visited Rovere?"

"Yes. The veiled lady. The Woman in Black. But I do not know her. No one
knew her."

The story told by the portress about the time when she surprised the
stranger and Rovere with the papers in his hand in front of the open
safe made quite an impression on the Examining Magistrate.

"Do you know the name of the visitor?"

"No, Monsieur," the portress replied.

"But if you should see him again would you recognize him?"

"Certainly! I see his face there, before me!"

She made haste to return to her home so that she might relate her
impressions to her fellow gossips. The worthy couple left the court
puffed up with self-esteem because of the role which they had been
called upon to play. The obsequies were to be held the next day, and the
prospect of a dramatic day in which M. and Mme. Moniche would still play
this important role, created in them an agony which was almost joyous.
The crowd around the house of the crime was always large. Some few
passers-by stopped--stopped before the stone facade behind which a
murder had been committed. The reporters returned again and again for
news, and the couple, greedy for glory, could not open a paper without
seeing their names printed in large letters. One journal had that
morning even published an especial article: "Interviews with M. and Mme.
Moniche."

The crowd buzzed about the lodge like a swarm of flies. M. Rovere's body
had been brought back from the Morgue. The obsequies would naturally
attract an enormous crowd; all the more, as the mystery was still as
deep as ever. Among his papers had been found a receipt for a tomb in
the cemetery at Montmartre, bought by him about a year before. In
another paper, not dated, were found directions as to how his funeral
was to be conducted. M. Rovere, after having passed a wanderi