already been returned by
the captain, or whether."...

"Or whether it has been stolen from him," finished Juve.

The supposition which the detective had put into words was so grave,
so terrible, so weighty in its consequence that the superintendent
cried, in a shaking voice:

"Robbed! Robbed! But by whom? Where? How? On the way from the Place de
l'Etoile here? While the body was being brought to the police
station?... Juve, it's incredible!"

Juve was walking up and down, up and down. "I don't like affairs of
this sort, in which officers are involved, and most particularly
officers connected with the Second Bureau of the Military Staff: they
require the most careful handling.... You never know where they will
lead. These officers are, owing to their functions, the masters of all
the military defences of France.... Confound it!"

Juve stopped short. "You had better let me see the body of this poor
fellow."

"Certainly!"...

The superintendent led Juve towards one of the rooms, where the corpse
of Captain Brocq was: it had been laid down on the floor. Pious hands
had lighted a mortuary candle, and, in view of the position held by
the dead man, two of the police staff were keeping watch and ward
until someone came to claim the body of the deceased.

Juve examined the corpse. "A fine fellow!" he said quietly.

He turned to the superintendent.

"You told me just now that Prof. Barrell chanced to be present at the
moment of death?"

"That is so."

"What did he suppose was the cause of death?"

The superintendent smiled. "Now you have it! Possibly you can throw
light on it, my dear Juve, for I could hardly make head or tail of his
diagnostic. The professor claims that death is due to a _phenomenon of
inhibition_. What does that mean exactly?"

Juve shrugged his shoulders.

"Inhibition!... Peuh!... It is a learned word--very learned!"...

"Which means to say?"... pressed the superintendent.

"It does not mean anything."

Juve's tone was a mixture of contempt and anger. The superintendent
was staggered. Juve's anger increased.

"It does not mean anything," he repeated. "Inhibition! Inhibition! It
is the term reserved for deaths that are unexplained and inexplicable:
it is the term with which science covers herself when she does not
wish to confess her ignorance."

The magistrate was smiling now.

"So then, Juve, you conclude that Professor Barrell has declared that
this officer had died through inhib