As he turned at the far side of the Pont St. Louis, Doctor Ardel, the celebrated medical jurist, caught sight of M. Fuselier, the magistrate, chatting with Inspector Juve in front of the Morgue.
"I am behind-hand, gentlemen. So sorry to have made you wait."
M. Fuselier and Juve crossed the tiny court and entered the semi-circular lecture-room, where daily lessons in medical jurisprudence are given to the students and the head men of the detective police force.
Doctor Ardel, piloting his guests, did the honours.
"The place is not exactly gay; in fact, it has an ill reputation; but anyhow, gentlemen, it is at your disposition. M. Fuselier, you will be able to investigate in peace: M. Juve, you will be at liberty to put any questions you choose to your client."
The doctor spoke in a loud voice, emphasising each word with a jolly laugh, good natured, devoid of malice, yet making an unpleasant impression on his two visitors less at home than he in the gruesome abode they had just entered.
"You will excuse me," he went on, "if I leave you for a couple of minutes to put on an overall and my rubber gloves?"
The doctor gone, the two instinctively felt a vague need to talk to counteract the doleful atmosphere the Morgue seemed to exhale, where so many unclaimed corpses, so much human flotsam, had come to sleep under the inquiring eyes of the crowd, before being given to the common ditch, being no more than an entry in a register and a date: "Body found so and so, buried so and so."
"Tell me, my dear Juve," asked M. Fuselier. "This morning directly I got your message I at once acceded to your wish and asked Ardel to have us both here this afternoon, but I hardly understand your object. What have you come here for?"
Juve, with both hands in his pockets, was walking up and down before the dissecting table. At the Magistrate's question he stopped short, and, turning to M. Fuselier, replied: