Bernardet thought that if he addressed the question to M. Dantin himself he might learn all he wished to know at once, and he approached him at the moment the procession started, and walked along with him almost to the cemetery, striving to enter into conversation with him. He spoke of the dead man, sadly lamenting M. Rovère's sad fate. But he found his neighbor very silent. Upon the sidewalk of the Boulevard the dense crowd stood in respectful silence and uncovered as the cortège passed, and the officer noticed that some loose petals from the flowers dropped upon the roadway. "There are a great many flowers," he remarked to his neighbor. "It is rather surprising, as M. Rovère seemed to have so few friends." "He has had many," the man brusquely remarked. His voice was hoarse, and quivered with emotion. Bernardet saw that he was strongly moved. Was it sorrow? Was it bitterness of spirit? Remorse, perhaps! The man did not seem, moreover, in a very softened mood. He walked along with his eyes upon the funeral car, his head uncovered in spite of the cold, and seemed to be in deep thought. The police officer studied him from a corner of his eye. His wrinkled face was intelligent, and bore an expression of weariness, but there was something hard about the set of the mouth and insolent in the turned-up end of his mustache. As they approached the cemetery at Montmartre--the journey was not a long one in which to make conversation--Bernardet ventured a decisive question: "Did you know M. Rovère very well?" The other replied: "Very well." "And whom do you think could have had any interest in this matter?" The question was brusque and cut like a knife. Jacques Dantin hesitated in his reply, looking keenly as they walked along at this little man with his smiling aspect, whose name he did not know and who had questioned him. "It is because I have a great interest in at once commencing my researches," said Bernardet, measuring his words in order to note the effect which they would produce on this unknown man. "I am a police detective." Oh! This time Bernardet saw Dantin shiver. There was no doubt of it; this close contact with a police officer troubled him, and he turned pale and a quick spasm passed over his face. His anxious eyes searched Bernardet's face, but, content with stealing an occasional glance of examination toward his neighbor, the little man walked along with eyes cast toward the ground. He studied Jacques Dantin in sudden, quick turns of the eye.