An equivocal smile touched the pale lips of Chaleck. It might be the weird inhabitant of the little house in Cité Frochot was not so sure as the porter was of the astuteness of the police. Perhaps he was thinking that a few hours before a certain Doctor Chaleck, hemmed in a passage with no exits and about to be compelled to show, like everyone else, the tips of his fingers, had, under the nose of the officers, and even of the artful and astute Juve, suddenly vanished, gone out of the world of the living and thought it necessary, for reasons he alone knew, to assume the rigidity of a corpse, the stillness of death. But the smile in a moment became frozen. The doctor who had kept both hands in his pockets while talking to the porter, suddenly felt a sharp twinge in the fingers of his right hand, and it became moist and lukewarm. This happened as the porter held out the register for him to sign. "Charles," he cried, "I'm in a great hurry; while I'm signing, please go out and stop the first taxi that passes." "Certainly, sir," replied the man. Scarcely had the doorkeeper turned his back when the doctor, with infinite precautions drew out his right hand and with evident difficulty began to write, holding the pen between the third and fourth fingers, as though unable to use the fore and middle ones. As he was finishing his entry, he made what was doubtless an unintended movement, something unexpected happened, for he suddenly turned pale and repressed a heavy oath. Charles was just coming back to the lodge. "Your taxi is here, Doctor." "Right. Thank you." Chaleck closed the register abruptly, jumped into the motor, threw an address to the driver, who got under way. On seeing the doctor shut the register, Charles cried: "The devil--there's no blotting paper in it, it will be sure to blot!" And, though it was too late, the careful man rushed to the book and opened it. His eyes became fixed on the page where the signatures were. He stared, wide-eyed. "Oh!--Oh!--" he murmured. X THE BLOODY SIGNATURE M. de Maufil was exceedingly nervous. "As soon as you went back to headquarters," he declared to Juve, some moments after that officer had been shown into his private room, "I continued the search with redoubled efforts. Neither the ward-nurses, in whom I place complete confidence, nor the heads of my staff, whom I have known for ever so long, passed the doors of the hospital. In fact, I took every precaution and obeyed your instructions to the letter--yet all in vain." "You found nothing?" "Nothing. Not only did we not discover the criminal, but we did not come upon any trace of him." "That's strange.". "It is maddening. It would seem that from the instant the man fired those two shots in the woman's ward in Patel's department he vanished, unaccountably. Your notion of examining the hands of all those in the hospital was an excellent one, but nothing came of it.