Before seating himself in the basket-chair which Monsieur Drubarde offered him, Heathcote took Joseph Distin's letter out of his pocket-book, and handed it to the ex-police-officer, who became convulsive with rapture when he saw the signature.
"Monsieur was welcome on his own account as a doubtless distinguished Englishman; as the friend of Monsieur Distin he is more than welcome. His visit is an honour, a privilege which an old member of the Paris police cannot too highly value," said Drubarde, with enthusiasm. "Ah, Monsieur, what a man is that Joseph Distin! what a commanding genius! I have had the honour to assist him in cases where that mighty intellect revealed itself with startling force, and where, I am proud to say, he must inevitably have failed, but for my humble assistance. Yes, Monsieur, old Drubarde has a flair, which even your great English lawyer envies. What a man, all the same!" Monsieur Drubarde paused for breath, and also to offer Mr. Heathcote a cigar, which was frankly accepted. And then the police-officer continued his eulogy of the English lawyer, with which he contrived to interweave a little gentle egotism.
"Had he been a Frenchman and lived under the first Emperor, he would have been greater than the Duke of Otranto, whom my father had the privilege to serve, and whom I remember seeing when I was a child. My father took me into the great chief's office one day, a little toddling creature, chubby, and, I am told, beautiful, in my little uniform of the Old Guard, a mother's fond fancy, Monsieur; the mothers of France love to make gracious pictures of their children. The Duke laid his hand upon my golden curls. 'What a lovely boy!' he exclaimed, deeply moved by my infantine beauty; 'I prophesy a brilliant future for him. This child will go far.' I hope, Monsieur, that my after-life has not belied the great man's prophecy."
"Mr. Distin assures me that you have won distinction in your calling," replied Heathcote, wondering how long the old gentleman's recollections of childhood were going to last. "Your narrative takes me back to a period that is classical. It assures me also that you who so vividly remember the events of sixty years ago—"
"More than sixty, Monsieur. I am past seventy years of age, I who speak to you."
Mr. Heathcote put on an appropriate expression of wonder.
"With such a memory for the remote past, it will hardly trouble you to recall the events of ten years ago," he continued, very eager to come to the point. "Now, exactly ten years ago, in this very month of September, there was a brutal murder, or attempted murder, of a woman, in a wood near Paris—"
"Do you mean the murder of Marie Prévol the actress,
