This pledge to secrecy would no doubt have been kept, but that rumours of poisoning and suicide, in connection with De Veron's death, having got abroad, the Procureur--General ordered an investigation to take place. The suspicion proved groundless; but the _proces-verbal_ set forth, that on examining the body of the deceased, there were discovered the letters 'I. de B.,' 'T. F.,' branded on the front of the left shoulder; the two last, initials of '_Travaux Forces_' (forced labour), being large and very distinct. There could be no doubt, therefore, that the proud M. de Veron was an escaped _forcat_; and subsequent investigation, which was not, however, very strongly pressed, sufficiently proved that Jean Baptiste de Veron, the younger son of a high family, had in very early youth been addicted to wild courses; that he had gone to the colonies under a feigned name, to escape difficulties at home; and whilst at the Isle de Bourbon, had been convicted of premeditated homicide at a gaming-house, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment with hard labour. Contriving to escape, he had returned to France, and by the aid of a considerable legacy, commenced a prosperous mercantile career; how terminated, we have just seen. It was by pure accident, or what passes for such in the world, that Madame Carson had arrived at a knowledge of the terrible secret. When M. de Veron, after spraining his ankle, was carried in a state of insensibility into the room behind her shop, she had immediately busied herself in removing his neckcloth, unfastening his shirt, then a flannel one which fitted tightly round the neck, and thus obtained a glimpse of the branded letters 'T. F.' With her customary quickness of wit, she instantly replaced the shirts, neckcloth, &c., and carefully concealed the fatal knowledge she had acquired, till an opportunity of using it advantageously should present itself. The foregoing are, I believe, all the reliable particulars known of a story of which there used to be half-a-hundred different versions flying about Le Havre. Edouard le Blanc married Madame Carson, and subsequently became a partner of Eugene de Veron. It was not long, however, before the business was removed to another and distant French seaport, where, for aught I know to the contrary, the firm of 'De Veron and Le Blanc' flourishes to this day. BETTING-OFFICES.