TRACKED TO DOOM
OR
THE MYSTERY OF THE RUE DE PEYCHAUD
’Tis midnight in Paris.
A myriad of lamps that line the Champs Elysées and the Rouge et Noir, cast their reflection in the dark waters of the Seine as it flows gloomily past the Place Vendôme and the black walls of the Convent Notadam.
The great French capital is astir.
It is the hour when crime and vice and wickedness reign.
Hundreds of fiacres drive madly through the streets conveying women, flashing with jewels and as beautiful as dreams, from opera and concert, and the little bijou supper rooms of the Café Tout le Temps are filled with laughing groups, while bon mots, persiflage and repartee fly upon the air—the jewels of thought and conversation.
Luxury and poverty brush each other in the streets. The homeless gamin, begging a sou with which to purchase a bed, and the spendthrift roué, scattering golden louis d’or, tread the same pavement.
When other cities sleep, Paris has just begun her wild revelry.
The first scene of our story is a cellar beneath the Rue de Peychaud.