"Monsieur Fandor, you are being asked for at the telephone." Like most journalists, Fandor was accustomed to reply in nine cases out of ten, in similar cases, that he was not to be found. On this occasion, however, some interior prompting made him say: "I will come." A few minutes later Fandor went up to the editorial secretary: "Look here, old fellow, something unexpected has happened.... I must go to the Palais de Justice ... you don't want me for anything else this morning, do you?" "No, go along! But what's up?" "Oh ... this Jacques Dollon, you know, the assassin of the rue Norvins? Well, this imbecile has gone and hanged himself in his cell!" * * * * * At the exit door of _La Capitale_, in the noisy rue Montmartre, crowded with costermongers' barrows, Jerome Fandor hailed a taxi. "To the Palais!" Some minutes later he was crossing the hall of the Wandering Footsteps (as it is called), giving rapid, cordial greetings to all the barristers of his acquaintance--one never knew when they might impart a special piece of information which let an enterprising journalist into the know, or put him early on to a good thing--and finally reached the lobbies of the Law Courts proper. He was saying to himself as he went along: "He is a good fellow, Jouet! The news is not known yet! He telephoned me first!" His friend Jouet met him, with a warm handshake: "You did not seem to be in a good temper at the telephone just now, although I was giving you a nice bit of information!" "Yes," retorted Fandor, "but information which simply proved how much the administrators of justice, to which you have the misfortune to belong, can make egregious mistakes! When, for once, you succeed in immediately arresting the assassin of someone well known, and are in a position to bring into play all the power and rigour of the law, you are clumsy enough to give the fellow a chance of punishing himself, you let him commit suicide on the very first night of his arrest!" Fandor had been speaking in a fairly loud voice, as usual, but, at imperative signs made by his friend, he lowered his tones: "What is it?" he murmured. His friend rose: "What we are going to do, old boy, is to take a turn in the galleries! I have something to say to you, and, joking apart, you are not to breathe a word of it to a soul--sh?" "Count on me!" Presently the two friends found themselves in one of the corridors of the Palais, known only to barristers and those accused of law-breaking. "Come now!" cried Fandor, "your assassin has hanged himself, hasn't he?" "My assassin!" expostulated the junior barrister: "My assassin! Allow me to inform you that Jacques Dollon is innocent!" "Innocent?" Jerome Fandor shrugged a disbelieving shoulder: "Innocent! It is the fashion of the day to transform all murderers into innocents!... What ground have you for making such a declaration of innocence?" "Here is my ground! I have just copied it out for you! Read!..."