, has caused immediate
death, producing a wound which has hardly bled at all, so precise and
clean has the wound been!"

Juve again bent over the corpse.

"It is plain to see that this officer's death has been caused by a
ball in the heart, right in the centre of the heart."

The superintendent now protested:

"But what you are telling us, Juve, is terrible, it is inadmissible!
How could this person have committed suicide without having been seen
in the act by someone? Without anyone finding his revolver? And that
at the very moment when he leaned out of the window of the vehicle to
give the chauffeur his instructions?"

Juve did not seem disposed to answer this. But, after remaining silent
for a minute or two, he took the superintendent by the arm in familiar
fashion, and drawing him away said: "Let us return to your office, I
have a couple of words to say to you."

When the superintendent and the detective had entered the room, when
they were alone together, when the detective had made sure that the
double door was shut tight, and that not a soul could hear them,
Juve, his hands resting on the writing-table, looked the
superintendent straight in the face. The latter, having seated himself
in his chair, waited for the detective to speak.

Juve spoke.

"We are thoroughly agreed, Monsieur, are we not, regarding the
conditions of the accident?... This officer has been shot through the
heart, when he was crossing the Place de l'Etoile in a vehicle, and at
the precise moment when he leaned over the door of that vehicle, and
this, without anyone having seen or heard what happened?"

"Yes, Juve, that is so. This suicide is incomprehensible!"

"It is not a case of suicide, Monsieur."...

"What is it, then?"

"A crime!"

"A crime!!!"

"This man has been killed by a shot from a gun, a shot fired from a
distance. No one saw the assassin do the deed: the Place de l'Etoile
was crowded with people. It was a shot fired from a distance, because
of an important point, Monsieur. The deceased was attached to the
Second Bureau of the Ministry of War. At the time of his death he was
the bearer of important documents: one of these important documents is
missing! I assure you, Monsieur, this not only determines the fact of
the crime, but furnishes us with the motive for that crime!"

The superintendent of police stared at Juve, speechless. At last he
said:

"But it is impossible! Absolutely impossible, I tell you! What