He prepared his poison reflectively,
"I will tell you all," he said.
One autumn the Editor of La Voix announced to the assistant-editor:
"I have a great idea for booming the paper."
The assistant-editor gazed at him respectfully. "I propose to prove, in the public interest, the difficulty of tracing a missing person. I shall instruct a member of the staff to disappear. I shall publish his description, and his portrait; and I shall offer a prize to the first stranger who identifies him."
The assistant-editor had tact and he did not reply that the idea had already been worked in London with a disappearing lady. He replied:
"What an original scheme!"
"It might be even more effective that the disappearing person should be a lady," added the chief, like one inspired.
"That," cried the assistant-editor, "is the top brick of genius!"
So the Editor reviewed the brief list of his lady contributors, and sent for mademoiselle Girard.
His choice fell upon mademoiselle Girard for two reasons. First, she was not facially remarkable—a smudgy portrait of her would look much like a smudgy portrait of anybody else. Second, she was not widely known in Paris, being at the beginning of her career; in fact she was so inexperienced that hitherto she had been entrusted only with criticism.