nevertheless."

"Ah, but the more deadly for that, perhaps; a sly man was Olivier
Dalibard!"

"What's the matter?" said an employee, lounging up to the group. "Are
you talking of Olivier Dalibard? It is but the other day he had Marsan's
appointment. He is now to have Pleyel's. I heard it two days ago; a
capital thing! Peste! il ira loin. We shall have him a senator soon."

"Speak for yourself," quoth a ci-devant abbe, with a laugh; "I should be
sorry to see him again soon, wherever he be."

"Plait-il? I don't understand you!"

"Don't you know that Olivier Dalibard is murdered, found stabbed,--in his
own house, too!"

"Ciel! Pray tell me all you know. His place, then, is vacant!"

"Why, it seems that Dalibard, who had been brought up to medicine, was
still fond of chemical experiments. He hired a room at the top of the
house for such scientific amusements. He was accustomed to spend part of
his nights there. They found him at morning bathed in his blood, with
three ghastly wounds in his side, and his fingers cut to the bone. He
had struggled hard with the knife that butchered him."

"In his own house!" said a lawyer. "Some servant or spendthrift heir."

"He has no heir but young Bellanger, who will be riche a millions, and is