The American smiled. Fandor had told him a few moments before that he had seen him supping at the "Crocodile" with a pretty woman. At Juve's instigation Fandor had alleged a sporting interview, in order to get into the American's house and discover if Josephine was still there. He meant to ascertain what the relations were between the pugilist and the girl. The allusion to that evening loosened the American's tongue. Absorbed by the pleasing impression which his pretty partner had made on him, Dixon began talking on the subject. He belonged to that class of men who, when they are in love, want the whole world to know it. The American set the young woman on such a pedestal of innocence and purity--that Fandor wondered if the pugilist were not laughing at him. But Dixon, quite unconscious, did not conceal his intention to elope with Josephine and shortly take her to America. Suddenly he rose. "Come," he said, "I will introduce you to her." Fandor was about to protest, but the American was already scouring the house and searching the park, calling: "Finette, Mlle. Finette, Josephine!" Presently he returned, his face distorted, unnerved, dejected, and in a toneless voice he ejaculated painfully: "The pretty little woman has made off without a word to me. I am very much grieved!" Five minutes later, Fandor jumped into a train which took him back to Paris. XXIII "STATES EVIDENCE" "Juve, I've been fooled." The journalist was resting on the great couch in his friend's study, Rue Bonaparte, and wound up with this assertion the long account of the fruitless inquiry he had made at Dixon's. "I'm played out! For two days I haven't stopped a minute. After the night at the "Crocodile," which I spent for the most part, as I told you, in search of Loupart, yesterday my day went in fruitless trips; my mind is made up; to-night I shall do no more!" "A cigarette, Fandor?" "Thanks." From the crystal vase where Juve, an inveterate smoker, always kept an ample stock of tobacco, he chose an Egyptian cigarette. "My dear Juve, it is absolutely necessary to go again to Sèvres and draw a close net round Dixon. He needs watching. Isn't that your opinion?" "I'm not sure." Juve thought for a few moments, then: "After all, what grounds have you for thinking that Dixon should be watched?" "Why, any number of reasons." "What are they?" It was Fandor's turn to be surprised. He had given Juve the account of his visit, supposing that would bring him to his way of thinking, and now Juve doubted Dixon being a suspect. "You ask me for particulars. I am going to reply with generalisations. Taking it all in all, what do we know of Dixon? That he was in a certain place and carried off Josephine under our very eyes. Hence he is a friend of Josephine's, which in itself looks compromising."