Standing in the center of a large room was a little man, very short and very fat, phenomenally fat, a hideous phenomenon.
He had a singular beard, straggling hair, white and yellow, and not a hair on his head. Not a hair!
As he held his candle aloft at arm's length in order to see me, his cranium appeared to me to resemble a little moon, in that vast chamber, encumbered with old furniture. His features were wrinkled and blown, and his eyes could not be seen.
I bought three chairs which belonged to myself, and paid at once a large sum for them, giving him merely the number of my room at the hotel. They were to be delivered the next day before nine o'clock.
I then started off. He conducted me, with much politeness, as far as the door.
I immediately repaired to the commissaire's office at the central police depot, and I told the commissaire of the robbery which had been perpetrated and of the discovery I had just made. He required time to communicate by telegraph with the authorities who had originally charge of the case, for information, and he begged me to wait in his office until an answer came back. An hour later, an answer came back, which was in accord with my statements.
"I am going to arrest and interrogate this man at once," he said to me, "for he may have conceived some sort of suspicion, and smuggled away out of sight what belongs to you. Will you go and dine and return in two hours: I shall then have the man here, and I shall subject him to a fresh interrogation in your presence."
"Most gladly, monsieur. I thank you with my whole heart."
I went to dine at my hotel and I ate better than I could have believed. I was quite happy now; "that man was in the hands of the police," I thought.
Two hours later I returned to the office of the police functionary, who was waiting for me.