It was a quarter to eight when M. Paul sat down in his spacious dining room to a meal that was waiting when he arrived and that Melanie served with solicitous care, remarking sadly that her master scarcely touched anything, his eyes roving here and there among painted mountain scenes that covered the four walls above the brown-and-gold wainscoting, or out into the garden through the long, open windows; he was searching, searching for something, she knew the signs, and with a sigh she took away her most tempting dishes untasted.

At eight o’clock the detective rose from the table and withdrew into his study, a large room opening off the dining room and furnished like no other study in the world.  Around the walls were low bookcases with wide tops on which were spread, under glass, what Coquenil called his criminal museum.  This included souvenirs of cases on which he had been engaged, wonderful sets of burglars’ tools, weapons used by murderers—­saws, picks, jointed jimmies of tempered steel, that could be taken apart and folded up in the space of a thick cigar and hidden about the person.  Also a remarkable collection of handcuffs from many countries and periods in history.  Also a collection of letters of criminals, some in cipher, with confessions of prisoners and last words of suicides.  Also plaster casts of hands of famous criminals.  And photographs of criminals, men and women, with faces often distorted to avoid recognition.  And various grewsome objects, a card case of human skin, and the twisted scarf used by a strangler.

As for the shelves underneath, they contained an unequaled special library of subjects interesting to a detective, both science and fiction being freely drawn upon in French, English, and German, for, while Coquenil was a man of action in a big way, he was also a student and a reader of books, and he delighted in long, lonely evenings, when, as now, he sat in his comfortable study thinking, thinking.

Melanie entered presently with coffee and cigarettes, which she placed on a table near the green-shaded lamp, within easy reach of the great red-leather chair where M. Paul was seated.  Then she stole out noiselessly.  It was five minutes past eight, and for an hour Coquenil thought and smoked and drank coffee.  Occasionally he frowned and moved impatiently, and several times he took off his glasses and stroked his brows over the eyes.

Finally he gave a long sigh of relief, and shutting his hands and throwing out his arms with a satisfied gesture, he rose and walked to the fireplace, over which hung a large portrait of his mother and several photographs, one of these taken in the exact attitude and costume of the painting of Whistler’s mother in the Luxembourg gallery.  M. Paul was proud of the striking resemblance between the two women.  For some moments he stood before the fine, kindly face, and then he said aloud, as if speaking to her:  “It looks like a hard fight, little mother, but I’m not afraid.”  And almost as he spoke, which seemed like a good omen, there came a clang at the iron gate in the garden and the sound of quick, crunching steps on the gravel walk.  M. Pougeot had arrived.