Spellbound and immovable, the denizens of the cellar gaze at the greatest modern detective as he goes about the customary duties of his office. He first measures the distance from the murdered woman to a point on the wall, then he takes down the name of the bartender and the day of the month and the year. Then drawing from his pocket a powerful microscope, he examines a little of the blood that stands upon the floor in little pools. "Mon Dieu!" he mutters, "it is as I feared--human blood." He then enters rapidly in a memorandum book the result of his investigations, and leaves the cellar. Tictocq bends his rapid steps in the direction of the headquarters of the Paris gendarmerie, but suddenly pausing, he strikes his hand upon his brow with a gesture of impatience. "Mille tonnerre," he mutters. "I should have asked the name of that man with the knife in his hand." * * * * * * It is reception night at the palace of the Duchess Valerie du Bellairs. The apartments are flooded with a mellow light from paraffine candles in solid silver candelabra. The company is the most aristocratic and wealthy in Paris. Three or four brass bands are playing behind a portière between the coal shed, and also behind time. Footmen in gay-laced livery bring in beer noiselessly and carry out apple-peelings dropped by the guests. Valerie, seventh Duchess du Bellairs, leans back on a solid gold ottoman on eiderdown cushions, surrounded by the wittiest, the bravest, and the handsomest courtiers in the capital. "Ah, madame," said the Prince Champvilliers, of Palais Royale, corner of Seventy-third Street, "as Montesquiaux says, 'Rien de plus bon tutti frutti'--Youth seems your inheritance. You are to-night the most beautiful, the wittiest in your own salon. I can scarce believe my own senses, when I remember that thirty-one years ago you--" "Saw it off!" says the Duchess peremptorily. The Prince bows low, and drawing a jewelled dagger, stabs himself to the heart. "The displeasure of your grace is worse than death," he says, as he takes his overcoat and hat from a corner of the mantelpiece and leaves the room. "Voilà," says Bèebè Francillon, fanning herself languidly. "That is the way with men. Flatter them, and they kiss your hand. Loose but a moment the silken leash that holds them captive through their vanity and self-opinionativeness, and the son-of-a-gun gets on his ear at once. The devil go with him, I say." "Ah, mon Princesse," sighs the Count Pumpernickel, stooping and whispering with eloquent eyes into her ear. "You are too hard upon us. Balzac says, 'All women are not to themselves what no one else is to another.' Do you not agree with him?" "Cheese it!" says the Princess. "Philosophy palls upon me. I'll shake you." "Hosses?" says the Count. Arm and arm they go out to the salon au Beurre. Armande de Fleury, the young pianissimo danseuse from the Folies Bergère is about to sing.