Above the second story, the mystery ceases. All the upper rooms, the price of which is relatively modest, are occupied by tenants who may be seen and heard,--clerks like Maxence, shop-girls from the neighborhood, a few restaurant-waiters, and sometimes some poor devil of an actor or chorus-singer from the Theatre Dejazet, the Circus, or the Chateau d’Eau. One of the great advantages of the Hotel des Folies--and Mme. Fortin, the landlady, never failed to point it out to the new tenants, an inestimable advantage, she declared--was a back entrance on the Rue Beranger. “And everybody knows,” she concluded, “that there is no chance of being caught, when one has the good luck of living in a house that has two outlets.” When Maxence entered the office, a small, dark, and dirty room, the proprietors, M. and Mme. Fortin were just finishing their breakfast with an immense bowl of coffee of doubtful color, of which an enormous red cat was taking a share. “Ah, here is M. Favoral!” they exclaimed. There was no mistaking their tone. They knew the catastrophe; and the newspaper lying on the table showed how they had heard it. “Some one called to see you last night,” said Mme. Fortin, a large fat woman, whose nose was always besmeared with snuff, and whose honeyed voice made a marked contrast with her bird-of-prey look. “Who?” “A gentleman of about fifty, tall and thin, with a long overcoat, coming down to his heels.” Maxence imagined, from this description, that he recognized his own father. And yet it seemed impossible, after what had happened, that he should dare to show himself on the Boulevard du Temple, where everybody knew him, within a step of the Cafe Turc, of which he was one of the oldest customers. “At what o’clock was he here?” he inquired. “I really can’t tell,” answered the landlady. “I was half asleep at the time; but Fortin can tell us.” M. Fortin, who looked about twenty years younger than his wife, was one of those small men, blonde, with scanty beard, a suspicious glance, and uneasy smile, such as the Madame Fortins know how to find, Heaven knows where. “The confectioner had just put up his shutters,” he replied: “consequently, it must have been between eleven and a quarter-past eleven.” “And didn’t he leave any word?” said Maxence. “Nothing, except that he was very sorry not to find you in. And, in fact, he did look quite annoyed. We asked him to leave his name; but he said it wasn’t worth while, and that he would call again.” At the glance which the landlady was throwing toward him from the corner of her eyes, Maxence understood that she had on the subject of that late visitor the same suspicion as himself. And, as if she had intended to make it more apparent still, “I ought, perhaps, to have given him your key,” she said. “And why so, pray?”