mother and the faithful old servant, Melanie, who took care of them,
especially during these summer months, when Madame Coquenil was away at a
country place in the Vosges Mountains that her son had bought for her. Paul
Coquenil had never married, and his friends declared that, besides his
work, he loved only two things in the world--his mother and his dog.

It was a quarter to eight when M. Paul sat down in his spacious dining room
to a meal that was waiting when he arrived and that Melanie served with
solicitous care, remarking sadly that her master scarcely touched anything,
his eyes roving here and there among painted mountain scenes that covered
the four walls above the brown-and-gold wainscoting, or out into the
garden through the long, open windows; he was searching, searching for
something, she knew the signs, and with a sigh she took away her most
tempting dishes untasted.

At eight o'clock the detective rose from the table and withdrew into his
study, a large room opening off the dining room and furnished like no other
study in the world. Around the walls were low bookcases with wide tops on
which were spread, under glass, what Coquenil called his criminal museum.
This included souvenirs of cases on which he had been engaged, wonderful
sets of burglars' tools, weapons used by murderers--saws, picks, jointed
jimmies of tempered steel, that could be taken apart and folded up in the
space of a thick cigar and hidden about the person. Also a remarkable
collection of handcuffs from many countries and periods in history. Also a
collection of letters of criminals, some in cipher, with confessions of
prisoners and last words of suicides. Also plaster casts of hands of famous
criminals. And photographs of criminals, men and women, with faces often
distorted to avoid recognition. And various grewsome objects, a card case
of human skin, and the twisted scarf used by a strangler.