As Fandor could not suppress a smile, the chief of the detective force added:

"Oh, we shall finish by arresting Dollon, have no fear! So far he has quite extraordinary luck in his favour, but the luck will turn, and we shall put our hand on his collar!"

"I certainly hope you may. But what are you going to do now?"

The two had stopped on the edge of the pavement, and were talking without paying any attention to the pa.s.sers-by who rubbed shoulders with them. The well-known journalist and the important police official were unrecognised.

Monsieur Havard took Fandor's arm.

"Look here, come along with me, Fandor? Just the time to telephone to a police station, and then I will take you with me to make a fresh investigation."

"Where!"

"At Jacques Dollon's studio. I have kept the key of the house, and I wish to see whether I can find any other rent receipts made out in the name of Durand. Though I can see how Dollon inveigled Dollon into a trap, I do not understand how it came about that Thomery paid the rent of that trap. There is some subtle contrivance of Dollon's here; I want to get to the bottom of it.... Will you come to rue Norvins?"

"I jolly well will!" cried Fandor.

The chief of the detective force telephoned to Headquarters, whilst Fandor got into communication with _La Capitale_. He sent on a report of the Thomery case up to that moment.

Quitting the police station, the two men hailed a cab, and were driven to the rue Norvins.

As far as they could tell, the artist's house had not been entered since Elizabeth Dollon's departure.

The neglected garden, with its rank growth of gra.s.s and weeds, gave an added air of melancholy to the deserted house.

Monsieur Havard put the key in the lock of the front door.

"Don't you think, Fandor, it gives one a queer feeling to enter a house where an unaccountable crime has been committed?" The key grated in the lock, and Monsieur Havard added:

"In spite of oneself, there is the feeling that some terrifying spectre is lurking within!"

"Or a ghost!" said Fandor.

And as the door was unlocked and opened, our journalist asked:

"Where shall we start this domiciliary visit?"

"Let us begin with the studio," replied Monsieur Havard, mounting to the first story.

No sooner had they entered the room, than a double cry escaped from the two men.

"Oh!..."

"Great Heaven!..."

In the very middle of the studio, there was the rigid body of a man hanging.

They rushed forward....

"Dead!" was Monsieur Havard's cry.

"Horribly dead!" echoed Fandor.

"Shall we never lay hands on those wretches?" Monsieur Havard stared, horrified, at the hanging corpse. He brought a chair, grasped the strong sharp knife he always carried about him, and, aided by Fandor, he cut the rope, laid the hanged man flat on the floor, and proceeded to examine the miserable remnant of a human being.

The face was swollen, gashed, crushed....

"The hands have been dipped in vitriol--they did not want finger prints taken--it is--it is Jacques Dollon!"

Fandor shook his head.

"Jacques Dollon? Of course, it isn't!... If it were Dollon, he would not hang himself here.... Why should he hang himself?"

Monsieur Havard remarked:

"He has not hanged himself. Again the stage has been set!... I could swear the man had been killed by blows from a hammer and hanged afterwards!... It seems to me, that if death had been caused through strangulation, there would have been marks round the neck.... But see, Fandor, the rope has hardly made a mark."

"No, the man was dead when they strung him up."

"It is of secondary importance!" remarked Fandor, who was preoccupied.

"You are mistaken: it matters a great deal! It decidedly looks as if Dollon had accomplices, who wished to be rid of him."

Fandor shook his head.

"It is not Dollon! It cannot be Dollon!"

"Look at the vitriolised hands--that was a precaution."

"I say, as you did just now: it's like a set piece--a bit of slag a.s.sa.s.sins' stage craft."

"I say, in Dollon's house, we have found Dollon at home!"

Fandor was not convinced. He felt certain Dollon had lied in the Depot.

"Well, Elizabeth Dollon can settle the question for us. There may be some physical peculiarity, some mark by which she can identify her brother's body!"

But Fandor was examining the body very carefully. Suddenly he rose from his stooping posture, exclaiming:

"I know who it is!"

"Who?"

"Jules! None other than Madame Bourrat's servant, Jules!... That is to say, an accomplice whom the bandits we are after wanted to be rid of. He might give them away when brought up for examination. That was why they managed his escape: they killed him afterwards, because he had served their turn, and was now an enc.u.mbrance."

"Your explanation is plausible, Fandor; but how about the truth of it?"