and I rejoice in having met a lady who can, if she pleases, help me to unravel a mystery which baffled the police."
"The police!" exclaimed Madame Leroux contemptuously; "the police are a parcel of no-great-things, or they would have found the man who killed my mistress and Monsieur de Maucroix in a week."
"Provided that he stopped in Paris to be found. But it seems evident that he got away from Paris, and instantly, or he would have been taken red-handed."
"I have reason to know that he was in Paris long after the murder," said Barbe decisively.
"What reason? Pray consider, Madame, that I am brought to this house by no idle curiosity, no morbid love of the horrible. It is my mission to discover the murderer of Marie Prévol. Give me your confidence, I entreat, Madame. You who loved your mistress must desire to see her assassin punished."
Barbe Leroux shrugged her shoulders with an air of doubt.
"I don't quite know that, Monsieur. Yes, I loved my mistress; but I pity her murderer. Come, we cannot talk in this passage all day. Will you walk into my room, Monsieur, and seat yourself for a little while? and then, if you are anxious to see the apartment in which that poor lady lived, it may perhaps be managed."
"You are very good," said Heathcote, slipping a napoleon into Barbe Leroux's broad palm.
Had it been half a napoleon she would have considered herself repaid for ordinary civility; but the larger coin secured extraordinary devotion. She would, in her own phrase, have thrown herself into the fire for this gentlemanly stranger, whose hat and coat were so decidedly English, but who spoke almost as a Parisian.
She ushered him into her little sitting-room, the very sanctuary and stronghold of her domestic life, since there was a bed in a curtained corner, while there was a cradle sunning itself in the few rays of light which crept down the hollow square of brick and stone on which the window opened. The pot-au-feu was simmering on a handful of wood-ashes in a corner of the hearth; and Madame Leroux's plethoric work-basket showed that she had been lately occupied in the repair of a blue linen blouse.
"Leroux is one of the porters at the Central Markets," she explained. "It is a hard life, and the pay is small; but there are perquisites, and between us we contrive to live and to put away a little for the daughter there," with a nod and a smile in the direction of the cradle, whence came the rhythmical breathing of a fat baby.
"The only one?" inquired Heathcote.
"Yes, Monsieur."
