We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents, every
one of the inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The subprefect,
after taking down my _proces verbal_ in his office, returned with me to
my hotel to get my passport. "Do you think," I asked, as I gave it to
him, "that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as they tried
to smother _me_?"

"I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the morgue," answered the
subprefect, "in whose pocket-books were found letters stating that they
had committed suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everything
at the gaming-table. Do I know how many of those men entered the same
gambling-house that _you_ entered? won as _you_ won? took that bed as
_you_ took it? slept in it? were smothered in it? and were privately
thrown into the river, with a letter of explanation written by the
murderers and placed in their pocket-books? No man can say how many or
how few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped. The people
of the gambling-house kept their bedstead machinery a secret from
_us_--even from the police! The dead kept the rest of the secret for
them. Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner! Be at my
office again at nine o'clock; in the meantime, _au revoir_!"

The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and reexamined; the
gambling-house was strictly searched all through from top to bottom; the
prisoners were separately interrogated, and two of the less guilty among
them made a confession. I discovered that the old soldier was master of
the gambling-house--_justice_ discovered that he had been drummed out of
the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of all sorts
of villainies since; that he was in possession of stolen property, which
the owners identified; and that he, the croupier, another accomplice,