now but a schoolboy at Lyons. No; it seems that the window was left
open, and that it communicates with the rooftops. There the murderer had
entered, and by that way escaped; for they found the leads of the gutter
dabbled with blood. The next house was uninhabited,--easy enough to get
in there, and lie perdu till night."

"Hum!" said the lawyer. "But the assassin could only have learned
Dalibard's habits from some one in the house. Was the deceased married?"

"Oh, yes,--to an Englishwoman."

"She had lovers, perhaps?"

"Pooh, lovers! The happiest couple ever known; you should have seen them
together! I dined there last week."

"It is strange," said the lawyer.

"And he was getting on so well," muttered a hungry-looking man.

"And his place is vacant!" repeated the employee, as he quitted the crowd
abstractedly.

In the house of Olivier Dalibard sits Lucretia alone, and in her own
usual morning-room. The officer appointed to such tasks by the French
law has performed his visit, and made his notes, and expressed
condolence with the widow, and promised justice and retribution, and
placed his seal on the locks till the representatives of the heir-at-law
shall arrive; and the heir-at-law is the very boy who had succeeded so
unexpectedly to the wealth of Jean Bellanger the contractor! But