d the crime, and paid for it? We know it, since we know
who benefits by the crime. But that is not sufficient. Justice
requires something more than moral proofs. Living, this bandit
would have spoken. His death insures the impunity of the wretches
of whom he was but the instrument."

"Perhaps," said M. Tregars.

And at the same time he took out of his pocket, and showed the note
found in Vincent Favoral's pocket-book,--that note, so obscure the
day before, now so terribly clear.

"I cannot understand your negligence. You should get through with
that Van Klopen affair: there is the danger."

The commissary of police cast but a glance upon it, and, replying
to the objections of his old experience rather more than addressing
himself to M. de Tregars,

"There can be no doubt about it," he murmured. "It is to the crime
committed to-day that these pressing recommendations relate; and,
directed as they are to Vincent Favoral, they attest his complicity.
It was he who had charge of finishing the Van Klopen affair; in other
words, to get rid of Lucienne. It was he, I'd wager my head, who
had treated with the false coachman."

He remained for over a minute absorbed in his own thoughts, then,

"But who is the author of these recommendations to Vincent Favoral?
Do you know that, M. le Marquis?" he said.

They looked at each other; and the same name rose to their lips,

"The Baroness de Thaller!"

This name, however, they did not utter.

The commissary had placed himself under the gasburner which gave
light to the Fortin's office; and, adjusting his glasses, he was
scrutinizing the note with the most minute attention, studying the
grain and the transparency of the paper, the ink, and the
handwriting. And at last,

"This note," he declared, "cannot constitute a proof against its
author: I mean an evident, material proof, such as we require to
obtain from a judge an order of arrest."

And, as Marius was protesting,

"This note," he insisted, "is written with the left hand, with
common ink, on ordinary foolscap paper, such as is found everywhere.
Now all left-hand writings look alike. Draw your own conclusions."

But M. de Tregars did not give it up yet.

"Wait a moment," he interrupted.

And briefly, though with the utmost exactness, he began telling his
visit to the Thaller mansion, his conversation with Mlle. Cesarine,
then with the baroness, and finally with the baron himself.

He described in the