"No, no! Fetch the commissary, quick! A crime has been committed—a terrible crime!" she gasped.
This was business, and the police-officer knew what he had to do.
"Run, Jules," he said to a colleague. "You know where M. Bontoux lives. Tell him he is wanted at the Hôtel Paradis." Then, turning to the woman, he said, "Now, madame, explain yourself."
"It is a murder, I am afraid. A gentleman has been stabbed."
"What gentleman? Where?"
"In the drawing-room, upstairs. I don't know his name, but he came here frequently. My husband will perhaps be able to tell you; he is there."
"Lead on," said the police-officer; "take me to the place. I will see to it myself."
They passed into the hotel through the inner portal, and up the stairs to the first floor, where the principal rooms were situated—three of them furnished and decorated magnificently, altogether out of keeping with the miserable exterior of the house, having enormous mirrors from ceiling to floor, gilt cornices, damask hangings, marble console tables, and chairs and sofas in marqueterie and buhl. The first room evidently served for reception; there was a sideboard in one corner, on which were the remains of a succulent repast, and dozens of empty bottles. The second and third rooms were more especially devoted to the business of the establishment. Long tables, covered with green cloth, filled up the centre of each, and were strewed with cards, dice and their boxes, croupier's rakes, and other implements of gaming.
The third room had been the scene of the crime. There upon the floor lay the body of a man, a well-dressed man, wearing the white kerseymere trousers, the light waistcoat, and long-tailed green coat which were then in vogue. His clothes were all spotted and bedrabbled with gore; his shirt was torn open, and plainly revealed the great gaping wound from which his life's blood was quickly ebbing away.
The wounded man's head rested on the knee of the night porter, a personage wearing a kind of livery, a strongly built, truculent-looking villain, whose duties, no doubt, comprised the putting of people out as well as the letting them into the house.
"Oh, Anatole! my cherished one!" began the porter's wife. "Here are the police. Tell us then, how this occurred."
"I will tell all I know," replied her husband, looking at the police-officer. "This morning, when the clients had nearly all gone, and I was sitting half asleep in the lodge, I heard—"
"Stop," said the police-officer, "not another word. Keep all you have to say for the commissary. He is already on the stairs."
The next minute M. Bontoux entered, accompanied by his clerk and the official doctor of the quarter.
"A crime," said the commissary, slowly, and with as much dignity as was possible in a middle-aged gentleman pulled from his bed at daybreak, and compelled to dress in a hurry. "A crime," he repeated. "Of that there can be no doubt. But let us establish the fact formally. Where are the witnesses?"
The porter, having relinquished the care of the wounded man to the doctor, stood up slowly and saluted the commissary.
"Very well; tell us what you know. Sit down"—this to the clerk. "Produce your writing-materials and prepare the report."
"It must have been about four this morning, but I was very drowsy, and the gentlemen had nearly all gone," said the night porter, speaking fluently, "when I was disturbed by the noise of a quarrel, a fight, up here in the principal drawing-room. While I was still rubbing my eyes, for I was very drowsy, and fancied I was dreaming, I heard a scream, a second, and a third, followed by a heavy fall on the floor. I rushed upstairs then, and found this poor gentleman as you see him."
"Alone?"
"Quite alone."
"But there must have been other people here. Did they come down the stairs past you?"
"No, sir; they must have escaped by that window. It was open—"
The commissary looked at the police-officer, who nodded intelligently.
"I had already noticed it, Mr. Commissary. The window gives upon a low roof, which communicates with the back street. Escape would be quite easy from that side."
"Well," said the commissary, "and you found this gentleman? Do you know him? His name? Have you ever seen him before?"
"He is M. le Baron d'Enot; he is a constant visitor at the house. Very fortunate, I believe, and I heard he won largely last night."
"Ah!" said the commissary. This fact was important, as affording a reason for the crime. "And do you suspect any one? Have you any idea who was here at the last?"
"I scarcely noticed the gentlemen as they went away; it would be impossible for me, therefore, to say who remained."
"Then there is no clue—"
"Hush! Mr. Commissary." It was the doctor's exclamation. "The victim is still alive, and is trying, I think, to speak." Evidence given at the point of death has extreme value in every country, under every kind of law. The commissary therefore bent his head, closely attentive to catch any words the dying man might utter.
"Water! water!" he gasped out. "Revenge me; it was a foul and cowardly blow."
"Who struck you, can you tell us? Do you know him?" inquired the commissary, eagerly.
"Yes. I—know—" The voice grew visibly weaker; it sank into a whisper, and could speak only in monosyllables.
"His name—quick!"
"There—were—three—I had no chance—Gas—coigne—"
"Strange name—not French?"
The dying man shook his head.
"Gasc—tell—Engl—"
It was the last supreme effort. With a long, deep groan, the poor fellow fell back dead.
"How unfortunate!" cried the commissary, "to die just when he would have told us all. These few words will scarcely suffice to identify the murderers. Can any one help us?"
M. Bontoux looked round.
"The name he mentioned I know," said the night-porter, quickly. "This M. Gascoigne came here frequently. He is an Englishman."
"So I gathered from the dead man's words. Do you know his domicile in Paris?"
"Rue St. Honoré, Hôtel Versailles and St. Cloud. I have seen him enter it more than once, with his wife. He has lived there some months."
"We must, if possible, lay hands on him at once. You, Jules, hasten with another police-agent to the Rue St. Honoré; he may have gone straight to his hotel."
"And if we find him?"
"Arrest him and take him straight to the Préfecture. I will follow. There, there! lose no time."
"I am already gone," said the police-officer as he ran downstairs.
CHAPTER II.
ARREST AND INTERROGATION.
The Hôtel Versailles and St. Cloud was one of the best hotels of Paris at this time, a time long antecedent to the opening of such vast caravansaries as the Louvre, the Continental, the Athenée, or the Grand. It occupied four sides of a courtyard, to which access was had by the usual gateway. The porter's lodge was in the latter, and this functionary, in sabots and shirt-sleeves, was sweeping out the entrance when the police arrived in a cab, which they ordered to wait