"What a pity," he said in his quietest voice, "for I should have been glad to have given you a couple of napoleons for any old letters or other documents that you might have found among the rubbish when you swept the rooms."
"For letters, they were all in the fireplace, torn to shreds," said the chambermaid; "but there was something—something that I picked up, and kept, in case the lady should come back, when I could return it to her."
"There is always something," said Faunce. "Well, Marie, what is it?"
"A photograph."
"Of the lady?"
"No, Monsieur, of a young man—pas grand' chose. But if Monsieur values the portrait at forty francs it is at his disposition, and I will hazard the anger of Madame should she return and ask me for it."
"Pas de danger! She will not return. She belongs to the wandering tribes, the people who never come back. Since the portrait is not of the lady herself, and may be worth nothing to me, we will say twenty francs, ma belle."
The chambermaid was inclined to haggle, but when Faunce shrugged his shoulders, laid a twenty-franc piece upon the table, and declined further argument, she pocketed the coin, and went to fetch the photograph.
It was the least possible thing in the way of portraits, of the kind called "midget," a full-length portrait of a young man, faded and dirty, in a little morocco case that had once been red, but was soiled to blackness.
"By Jove!" muttered Faunce, "I ought to know that face."