"Now, Perriot, do you——"
"There he is, Monsieur le Commissaire," anticipated the cabman. "I'd know him among a thousand."
"Ah! And there we are. I thought so!" said the police official. "Now, Monsieur Lerouge," facing the latter with a catlike eye, "where's the body?"
The young man looked puzzled, very naturally, while his companions were speechless with astonishment.
The veteran police officer took in every detail of this and mentally admitted that it was clever, deucedly clever, acting.
"I say, where is the body?" he repeated.
"And I say," retorted Lerouge, with a calmness of tone and steadiness of eye that almost staggered the old criminal catcher, "that I do not understand you, and am very patiently awaiting your explanation."
"Search the place!" curtly commanded the officer.
A clamorous protest arose from all three of the students. But the commissary of police waved them aside.
"It means that this man, Henri Lerouge, between six and seven o'clock this evening, carried a dead body from the Rue St. Honoré——"