I put the whole thing impatiently away from me, and turned to other work; but I found I could not conquer a certain deep-seated nervousness; so at last I locked my desk, told the boy I would not be back, and took a cab for a long drive through the park.  The fresh air, the smell of the trees, the sight of the children playing along the paths, did me good, and I was able to greet Godfrey with a smile when he called for me at seven o’clock.

“I’ve engaged a table at a little place around the corner,” he said.  “It is managed by a friend of mine, and I think you’ll like it.”

I did.  Indeed, the dinner was so good that it demanded undivided attention, and not until the coffee was on the table and the cigars lighted did we speak of the business which had brought us together.

“Anything new?” I asked, as we pushed back our chairs.

“No, nothing of any importance.  The man at the morgue has not been identified.  In the first place, the Paris police have never taken his Bertillon measurements.”

“Then he’s not a criminal?”

“He has never been arrested,” Godfrey qualified.  “More peculiar is the fact that he hasn’t been recognised here.  Two million people, probably, saw his photograph in the papers this morning.  Some of them thought they knew him and went around to the morgue to see his body, but nothing came of it.  The police have no report of any such man missing.”

“That is peculiar, isn’t it!” I commented.

“It’s very peculiar.  It means one of two things—­either the fellow’s friends are keeping dark purposely, or he didn’t have any friends, here in New York, at least.  But even then, one would think that whoever rented him a room would wonder what had become of him, and would make some inquiries.”

“Perhaps he hadn’t rented a room,” I suggested.  “Perhaps he had just reached New York, and went direct to Vantine’s.”

Godfrey’s face lighted up.

“From the steamer, of course!  I ought to have guessed as much from the cut of his hair.  He hasn’t been out of France more than ten days or so.  Excuse me a moment.”

He hurried away, and five minutes passed before he came back.

“I ’phoned the office to send some men around to the boats which came in yesterday.  If he was a passenger, some one of the stewards will recognise his photograph.  There were three boats he might have come on—­the Adriatic and Cecelie from Cherbourg, and La Touraine from Havre.  There is nothing else that I know of,” he added thoughtfully, “except that Freylinghuisen thinks he has discovered the nature of the poison.  He says it is some very powerful variant of prussic acid.”

“Yes,” I said, “I heard him say something of the sort last night.”