"Here? In the Rue Antoine Dubois, after dark, monsieur? And for a—a—'stiff'? Not for a hundred francs!"
The students roared with laughter. As the agents had returned a report meanwhile to the effect that there were no signs of any "subject" immediately in hand, the commissary was deeply chagrined.
"Now, gentlemen," he began, in a fatherly tone, "it is evident that a body has been taken from the street and brought here instead of being turned over to the police for the morgue and usual forms of identification. That body is possibly unimportant in itself, and would probably fall to your admirable institution eventually. But the law prescribes the proper course in such cases. We have traced that body to this place and to one of your number. Far be it from me to find fault with the desire of young gentlemen seeking to perfect their knowledge of anatomy for the benefit of humanity; but we must know where that body went from here."
The last very emphatically, with a stern gaze at Henri Lerouge.
"And on our part," answered the latter, with ill-subdued passion, "we say there is no body here, that none has been brought here to-night, that we have been together all day, and that we had but just arrived here before this unwarrantable intrusion; in short, that your petits mouchards there have lied!"
It was impossible not to believe him. Yet the evidence of the cabman, corroborated circumstantially in part by Agent Dubat, seemed equally positive and irresistible.
The commissary was nonplussed for a minute. He looked sternly at Monsieur Perriot. The latter was nervously fumbling his glazed hat. Somebody had lied. The commissary decided that it was the unlucky cabman.
"Monsieur Perriot?"
"Y-yes, Monsieur le Commissaire."
"Have you got a five-franc piece about you?"