"I congratulate you, sir. Will you take a seat?"

Puymirol accepted the invitation; but in spite of his gracious reception, he felt ill at ease in the presence of these two persons.

When a man has not a clear conscience, he sees danger everywhere, and Puymirol almost fancied himself a culprit arraigned before an investigating magistrate and his secretary. It was necessary to exhibit the ticket, however, so he drew the whole packet from his pocket and handed it to the gentleman in the arm-chair, who unfolded it, and examined the tickets one after another. "Here are some that do not interest us," he remarked: "the Tunisian Lottery, the Amsterdam Lottery."

"Yes," replied Puymirol, "I take a chance or two in all of them, but so far I have never won anything."

The official continued his examination, and finally lighted upon No.

115,815. This he examined closely, first upon one side, and then upon the other, and finally pa.s.sed it to the gentleman seated at the end of the table. "Excuse this close examination," he remarked to Puymirol. "It not infrequently happens that spurious tickets are presented to us; that is to say, tickets of which the numbers have been altered."

"That is not the case with mine, I suppose?"

"No, sir. It is a little soiled, but it has not been tampered with."

"Then I can draw the amount?"

"There are certain formalities which must be gone through first of all.

Will you give me your name and address?"

Puymirol coloured slightly. "Is this indispensable?" he asked. "I don't care to have my name in the papers. If it became known that I had won this prize," he added, a little nervously, "I should be beset on every side by requests for money. All my impecunious friends would make demands upon my purse, and my hundred thousand francs wouldn't last long."

"Oh! you need have no fears, sir. We shall not publish your name. This isn't the first time that winners have requested us not to give their names, and we have always complied with such requests, although, by doing so, we miss an excellent advertis.e.m.e.nt for our lottery. You need not, therefore, object to giving us your name and address. They will be recorded upon our books, but no one will be allowed to see them."

"That is all I ask. My name is Adhemar de Puymirol. I am a medical student, and I reside at No. 14 Rue de Medicis."

"Very well, sir, we will make a note of it. I forgot to mention that you would be obliged to give this information, in any case, for no winner can draw a penny of his money without giving a receipt to which his address must be appended."

"I fancied that it would only be necessary to present the ticket at your office so as to obtain the money, but I am ready and willing to give a receipt for it."

The gentleman took no notice of this hint. He seemed to have become suddenly absorbed in the examination of some papers; however, the person whom Adhemar had taken for a secretary, looked up, and, with his eyes fixed searchingly on the applicant's face, he curtly asked: "How old are you?"

"What difference can my age possibly make? I have attained my majority, as you see, and that is all that is necessary to make my receipt perfectly valid."

"Where were you born?"

"What business is that of yours?" replied Adhemar, exasperated by these strange questions.

"You refuse to answer, then?"

"Yes, certainly. I came here to draw the money due to me. I don't intend to be cross examined like some criminal."

"Be careful, I am a commissary of police."

Puymirol turned pale. He realised, at last, that he had plunged blindly into a frightful abyss, and that his imprudence was about to cost him dear. He was resolved to defend himself to the last, however. "I was not aware that the managers of this popular lottery required the a.s.sistance of police officials in the performance of their duties," he retorted.

"This precaution will hardly favour the sale of tickets, should it become known to the public, and I will take good care to inform people about it."

"You are speaking to a magistrate, remember. Tell me where, and when, you purchased this ticket?"

"At a tobacconist's, probably."

"What tobacconist's?"

"The deuce take me if I can remember. I purchased between twenty and thirty tickets, and in a dozen different places. They are all here on the table."

"Yes, I see you have brought them all. It is strange that the idea of detaching the winning ticket did not occur to you. One can not think of everything, however."

"I brought the package exactly as I took it from my pocket-book."

"Have you that pocket-book about you?"

"No," stammered Puymirol, disconcerted by this question, which he might have foreseen, however. "I left it at home."

"Of course, great as your audacity may be, you would hardly dare to produce that. It bears other initials than yours."

"Produce it if you can," retorted Puymirol, imprudently.

"I understand. You have no fear of its being produced; you have destroyed it."

This time the commissary had made a mistake, and a suspicion that had flashed across Puymirol's mind a few moments before, was effectually dispelled. He had fancied that his a.s.sailant of the previous night might have been set upon his track by the police, who had taken forcible possession of the pocket-book, by orders of his superiors. "I do not understand you, unfortunately," said Adhemar. "But let us put an end to this. What are you aiming at?"

"Well, a crime was committed in Paris about a fortnight ago. A well-known gentleman, a man of fashion, was murdered at mid-day, in his rooms. You must have heard of the affair?"

"Yes, through the papers."

"Well, the gentleman's valet was arrested; but, as there was no evidence against him, he has been released. The murderer has not only escaped detection so far, but the motive that prompted the crime has not yet been discovered. All that has been ascertained is that the victim always carried a pocket-book, of which a full description has been given, and that this pocket-book has disappeared."

"All this is very interesting," sneered Puymirol. "The pocket-book probably contained a large sum of money?"

"That is the general supposition, but one can not be sure. One thing, however, is certain; it contained several tickets of this lottery, and among this gentleman's private papers, a list of these tickets was found. It occurred to the investigating magistrate that he might utilise this information in the improbable event of one of these particular tickets winning a prize, and being presented for payment by the murderer. It was one chance in a million, and yet it has occurred. As soon as the investigating magistrate ascertained that one of these tickets had won the grand prize, he gave me orders to come here with two detectives. Now, you must understand the situation. What have you to say?"

"Nothing."

"Your silence is equivalent to a confession of guilt. You admit, then, that you purloined these tickets after killing the man who had them about his person?"

"I admit nothing of the kind."

"Oh! it is patent that you took them from the body of your victim; and you had the courage to open the pocket-book immediately after murdering that unfortunate man. Look at this ticket. The mark of your b.l.o.o.d.y fingers is still upon it."

As the commissary spoke he spread the ticket out upon the table and pointed to a couple of pale red stains upon the back of it and which Puymirol had not perceived when he had looked at the ticket on the boulevard. However he made no attempt to refute the commissary's arguments. He had decided to defend himself in a different way. "So you really accuse me of murder and robbery?" he asked.

"I have merely stated the facts and the conclusions one must naturally draw from them. It is for you to prove that my deductions are false.

Now, do you still persist in declaring that you purchased the tickets in a cigar shop?"

"No," was Adhemar's reluctant response. "I found them in a cab a fortnight ago."

"And you kept them until now?"

"I attached very little importance to the occurrence. Lottery tickets are seldom of any value."