The professor rises in alarm.

“Hush,” says Tictocq:  “Make no noise at all.  You have already made enough.”

Footsteps are heard outside.

“Be quick,” says Tictocq:  “give me those socks.  There is not a moment to spare.”

“Vas sagst du?”

“Ah, he confesses,” says Tictocq.  “No socks will do but those you carried off from the Populist Candidate’s room.”

The company is returning, no longer hearing the music.

Tictooq hesitates not.  He seizes the professor, throws him upon the floor, tears off his shoes and socks, and escapes with the latter through the open window into the garden.

CHAPTER III

Tictocq’s room in the Avenue Hotel.

A knock is heard at the door.

Tictocq opens it and looks at his watch.

“Ah,” he says, “it is just six.  Entrez, Messieurs.”

The messieurs entrez.  There are seven of them; the Populist Candidate who is there by invitation, not knowing for what purpose; the chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, platform No. 2, the hotel proprietor, and three or four Democrats and Populists, as near as could be found out.

“I don’t know,” begins the Populist Candidate, “what in the h——­”

“Excuse me,” says Tictocq, firmly.  “You will oblige me by keeping silent until I make my report.  I have been employed in this case, and I have unravelled it.  For the honor of France I request that I be heard with attention.”

“Certainly,” says the chairman; “we will be pleased to listen.”

Tictocq stands in the centre of the room.  The electric light burns brightly above him.  He seems the incarnation of alertness, vigor, cleverness, and cunning.

The company seat themselves in chairs along the wall.

“When informed of the robbery,” begins Tictocq, “I first questioned the bell boy.  He knew nothing.  I went to the police headquarters.  They knew nothing.  I invited one of them to the bar to drink.  He said there used to be a little colored boy in the Tenth Ward who stole things and kept them for recovery by the police, but failed to be at the place agreed upon for arrest one time, and had been sent to jail.

“I then began to think.  I reasoned.  No man, said I, would carry a Populist’s socks in his pocket without wrapping them up.  He would not want to do so in the hotel.  He would want a paper.  Where would he get one?  At the Statesman office, of course.  I went there.  A young man with his hair combed down on his forehead sat behind the desk.  I knew he was writing society items, for a young lady’s slipper, a piece of cake, a fan, a half emptied bottle of cocktail, a bunch of roses, and a police whistle lay on the desk before him.

“’Can you tell me if a man purchased a paper here in the last three months?’ I said.

“‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘we sold one last night.’