the second floor, where the tragedy took place, being occupied by public
dining rooms, but the two wings, in accordance with Parisian custom,
containing a number of private rooms where delicious meals might be had
with discreet attendance by those who wished to dine alone. In each of the
wings were seven of these private rooms, all opening on a dark-red
passageway lighted by soft electric lamps. It was in one of the west wing
private rooms that the crime had been committed, and as the commissary
reached the wing the waiters' awe-struck looks showed him plainly enough
_which_ was the room--there, on the right, the second from the end, where
the patient policeman was standing guard.

M. Pougeot paused at the turn of the corridor to ask some question, but he
was interrupted by a burst of singing on the left, a roaring chorus of
hilarity.

"It's a banquet party," explained the doctor, "a lot of Americans. They
don't know what has happened."

"Hah!" reflected the other. "Just across the corridor, too!"

Then, briefly, the commissary heard what the witnesses had to tell him
about the crime. It had been discovered half an hour before, more precisely
at ten minutes to nine, by a waiter Joseph, who was serving a couple in
Number Six, a dark-complexioned man and a strikingly handsome woman. They
had arrived at a quarter before eight and the meal had begun at once. Oddly
enough, after the soup, the gentleman told the waiter not to bring the next
course until he rang, at the same time slipping into his hand a ten-franc
piece. Whereupon Joseph had nodded his understanding--he had seen impatient
lovers before, although they usually restrained their ardor until after the
fish; still, _ma foi_, this was a woman to make a man lose his head, and