"What was the name of the man?" asked the officer quietly.
The woman did not know; but before he left the Rue Princesse the detective had established the facts, that Pierre Voirbo was the man's name, and that he had lived close by, and was a tailor by trade.
All trivial clues, and based on conjecture, but Macé considered them worth his trouble. He felt that he was getting on, and when he discovered that Pierre Voirbo had had a friend named Bodasse—Mademoiselle Dard told him this—who had not been seen for a long time, he congratulated himself, recalling the initial on the stocking.
But there yet remained the difficulty of identification. Step by step he delved into Voirbo's life, and simultaneously set going the inquiries that ended in the finding of an old lady who was Bodasse's aunt. She was instantly taken to the Morgue to view the stocking with the initial on it, and, greatly to the delight of the police, immediately identified it as belonging to her nephew. She had the best of reasons for her statement, for she had marked the stockings herself. It appeared that, as Bodasse suffered from cold legs, he had had the upper part of a woman's stockings joined to the feet of a man's socks. This accounted in a measure for the mistake of the doctors who had certified the human legs to be those of a woman.
The aunt said that she had not seen her nephew for a month, but had not felt alarmed on this account. She was used to his ways, and she illustrated them by relating how once when Bodasse had been unwell he had entered a hospital under a false name so that he might receive care and attention free of cost to himself.
Madame, however, was of further use, as she was able to describe the appearance of Bodasse's friend, Pierre Voirbo. She gave information as to his habits, and Macé quickly had the story of the marriage, the ten thousand francs, the change of address, and all else of importance that concerned Voirbo at his finger-ends. There only remained now the task of proving that Désiré Bodasse had disappeared on a certain date, and the detective went to the apartment house where Bodasse had lived.
Here he met with a most unexpected rebuff. The concierge actually informed him that Monsieur Bodasse was at home at that very moment! The night before she had seen a light in his room, and had noticed his shadow across the blind. If her word was doubted, she added the indisputable evidence that that very morning she had seen Bodasse in the street!
The witness was undeniably respectable, and Macé had to accept her word, and, now that Bodasse was not the victim, he had to pursue his investigations elsewhere; but before he left he deposited a letter with the concierge to be handed over to the old miser when he returned.
But Macé never forgot Pierre Voirbo. The man might be innocent, but there was suspicion enough to justify his being kept in sight. Even if Bodasse was not the man whose legs they had found in the well, it was just possible that Voirbo had got rid of the miser for the sake of his savings. For that reason he was shadowed, and, when, after a long wait and no sign of Bodasse's return, the police determined to break into his room they discovered that whoever had inhabited it recently it had not been the tenant, for a robbery had taken place.
The mystery became complicated, and yet simpler. Who was the mysterious person who had walked about Bodasse's room, and who had come every night to light the candle? The bed had not been slept in for weeks. It was, therefore, obvious that the thief had not remained there all night.