“Grand Dieu!” he cried.

“You saw the body, the man’s body?” questioned the commissary.

“Yes, sir,” answered the waiter, his face still pale at the memory.

“And the woman?  Where was the woman?”

“Ah, I forgot,” stammered Joseph.  “She had come out of the room before this, while I was waiting.  She asked where the telephone was, and I told her it was on the floor below.  Then she went downstairs—­at least I suppose she did, for she never came back.”

“Did anyone see her leave the hotel?”, demanded Pougeot sharply, looking at the others.

“It’s extraordinary,” answered the doctor, “but no one seems to have seen this woman go out.  M. Gibelin made inquiries, but he could learn nothing except that she really went to the telephone booth.  The girl there remembers her.”

Again Pougeot turned to the waiter.

“What sort of a woman was she?  A lady or—­or not?”

Joseph clucked his tongue admiringly.  “She was a lady, all right.  And a stunner!  Eyes and—­shoulders and—­um-m!” He described imaginary feminine curves with the unction of a male dressmaker.  “Oh, there’s one thing more!”

“You can tell me later.  Now, doctor, we’ll look at the room.  I’ll need you, Leroy, and you and you.”  He motioned to his secretary and to two of his men.

Dr. Joubert, bowing gravely, opened the door of Number Six, and the commissary entered, followed by his scribe, a very bald and pale young man, and by the two policemen.  Last came the doctor, closing the door carefully behind him.

It was the commissary’s custom on arriving at the scene of a crime to record his first impressions immediately, taking careful note of every fact and detail in the picture that seemed to have the slightest bearing on the case.  These he would dictate rapidly to his secretary, walking back and forth, searching everywhere with keen eyes and trained intelligence, especially for signs of violence, a broken window, an overturned table, a weapon, and noting all suspicious stains—­mud stains, blood stains, the print of a foot, the smear of a hand and, of course, describing carefully the appearance of a victim’s body, the wounds, the position, the expression of the face, any tearing or disorder of the garments.  Many times these quick, haphazard jottings, made in the precious moments immediately following a crime, had proved of incalculable value in the subsequent investigation.

In the present case, however, M. Pougeot was fairly taken aback by the lack of significant material.  Everything in the room was as it should be, table spread with snowy linen, two places set faultlessly among flowers and flashing glasses, chairs in their places, pictures smiling down from the white-and-gold walls, shaded electric lights diffusing a pleasant glow—­in short, no disorder, no sign of struggle, yet, there, stretched at full length on the floor near a pale-yellow sofa, lay a man in evening dress, his head resting, face downward, in a little red pool.  He was evidently dead.