"By Jove!"
Twenty minutes later he stepped out of the underground railway-station and made for the Rue de Berne.
The victim, who was known in the theatrical world by her stage-name of Jenny Saphir, occupied a small flat on the second floor of one of the houses. A policeman took the chief-inspector upstairs and showed him the way, through two sitting-rooms, to a bedroom, where he found the magistrates in charge of the inquiry, together with the divisional surgeon and M. Dudouis, the head of the detective-service.
Ganimard started at the first glance which he gave into the room. He saw, lying on a sofa, the corpse of a young woman whose hands clutched a strip of red silk! One of the shoulders, which appeared above the low-cut bodice, bore the marks of two wounds surrounded with clotted blood. The distorted and almost blackened features still bore an expression of frenzied terror.
The divisional surgeon, who had just finished his examination, said:
"My first conclusions are very clear. The victim was twice stabbed with a dagger and afterward strangled. The immediate cause of death was asphyxia."
"By Jove!" thought Ganimard again, remembering Lupin's words and the picture which he had drawn of the crime.
The examining-magistrate objected:
"But the neck shows no discoloration."
"She may have been strangled with a napkin or a handkerchief," said the doctor.