"Here is the correspondence—letters written by Brocq to the girl! One of my collaborators seized them at girl's place."...
Juve scrutinised the letters.
"It's curious," he said, half to himself.... "An annoying coincidence ... but the name of Nichoune does not appear once in these letters!"
"No other name appears," observed the colonel: "Consequently, taking into consideration the place where these letters have been found ... we must conclude."...
"These letters had no envelopes with them?" questioned Juve.
"No, there were none, but what matters that?" cried the colonel.
"Very queer," said Juve, in a meditative tone. Then raising his voice:
"I suppose, Colonel, that your ... collaborator, before taking possession of these letters, had a talk with the person who had received them. Did he manage to extract any information?"
Hofferman interrupted Juve with a gesture.
"Monsieur Juve," said he, crossing his arms, "I am going to give you another surprise: my collaborator could not get the person in question to talk, and for a very good reason: he found her dead!"