ton; how old was he?"

"Oh, young. About thirty years old. Very good looking. Dark, with a full
beard."

"Did anything about him especially strike you?"

"Nothing!" The woman shortly replied; she had become tired of these
questions and looked at the little man with a troubled glance.

Bernardet readily understood; and assuming a paternal, a beaming air, he
said with his sweet smile:

"I will not _fence_ any more; I will tell you the truth. I am a Police
Inspector, and I find that this portrait strangely resembles a man whom
we have under lock and key. You understand that it is very important I
should know all that is to be ascertained about this picture."

"But I have told you all I know, Monsieur," said the shopkeeper.
"Charles Breton, Rue de la Condamine, 16; that is the name and address.
I paid 20 francs for it. There is the receipt--read it, I beg. It is all
right. We keep a good shop. Never have we, my late husband and I, been
mixed with anything unlawful. Sometimes the bric-a-brac is soiled, but
our hands and consciences have always been clean. Ask any one along the
street about the Widow Colard. I owe no one and every one esteems
me"----

The Widow Colard would have gone on indefinitely if Bernardet had not
stopped her. She had, at first mention of the police, suddenly turned
pale, but now she was very red, and her anger displayed itself in a
torrent of words. He stemmed the flood of verbs.

"I do not accuse you, Mme. Colard, and I have said only what I wished to
say. I passed by chance your shop; I saw in the window a portrait which
resembled some one I knew. I ask you the price and I question you about
its advent into your shop. There is nothing there which concerns you
personally. I do not suspect you of receiving stolen goods; I do not
doubt your good faith. I repeat my question. How much do you want for
this picture?"

"Twenty francs, if you please. That is what it cost me. I do not wish to
have it draw me into anything troublesome. Take it for nothing, if that
pleases you."

"Not at all! I intend to pay you. Of what are you thinking, Mme.
Colard?"

The shopwoman had, like all people of a certain class, a horror of the
police. The presence of a police inspector in her house seemed at once a
dishonor and a menace. She felt herself vaguely under suspicion, and she
felt an impulse to shout aloud her innocence.

Always smiling, the good man, with a gesture like that of a prelate
blessing his peop