“Are you prepared, Monsieur,” he said, addressing Mueller for the first time—­“are you, I say, prepared to identify the prisoner upon oath?”

“Within certain limitations—­yes,” replied Mueller.

“Certain limitations!” exclaimed the Chef, testily.  “What do you mean by ‘certain limitations?’ Here is the man whom you accuse, and here is the photograph.  Are you, I repeat, prepared to make your deposition before Monsieur le Prefet that they are one and the same person?”

“I am neither more nor less prepared, Monsieur,” said Mueller, “than you are; or than Monsieur le Prefet, when he has the opportunity of judging.  As I have already had the honor of informing you, I saw the prisoner for the first time about two months since.  Having reason to believe that he was living in Paris under an assumed name, and wearing a decoration to which he had no right, I prosecuted certain inquiries about him.  The result of those inquiries led me to conclude that he was an escaped convict from the Bagnes of Toulon.  Never having seen him at Toulon, I was unable to prove this fact without assistance.  You, Monsieur, have furnished that assistance, and the proof is now in your hand.  It only remains for Monsieur le Prefet and yourself to decide upon its value.”

“Give me the photograph, Monsieur Marmot,” said a pale little man in blue spectacles, who had come in unobserved from a door behind us, while Mueller was speaking.

The bald-headed Chef jumped up with great alacrity, bowed like a second Sir Pertinax, and handed over the photograph.

“The peculiar difficulty of this case, Monsieur le Prefet” ... he began.

The Prefet waved his hand.

“Thanks, Monsieur Marmot,” he said, “I know all the particulars of this case.  You need not trouble to explain them.  So this is the photograph forwarded from Toulon.  Well—­well!  Sergeant, strip the prisoner’s shoulders.”

A sudden quiver shot over Lenoir’s face at this order, and his cheek blenched under the tan; but he neither spoke nor resisted.  The next moment his coat and waistcoat were lying on the ground; his shirt, torn in the rough handling, was hanging round his loins, and he stood before us naked to the waist, lean, brown, muscular—­a torso of an athlete done in bronze.

We pressed round eagerly.  Monsieur le Chef put up his double eye-glass; Monsier le Prefet took off his blue spectacles.

“So—­so,” he said, pointing with the end of his glasses towards a whitish, indefinite kind of scar on Lenoir’s left shoulder, “here is a mark like a burn.  Is this the brand?”

The sergeant nodded.

“V’la, M’sieur le Prefet!” he said, and struck the spot smartly with his open palm.  Instantly the smitten place turned livid, while from the midst of it, like the handwriting on the wall, the fatal letters T. F. sprang out in characters of fire.

Lenoir flashed a savage glance upon us, and checked the imprecation that rose to his lips.  Monsieur le Prefet, with a little nod of satisfaction, put on his glasses again, went over to the table, took out a printed form from a certain drawer, dipped a pen in the ink, and said:—­