"Oh!" protested Juve. "You arrive at your conclusions very quickly, Fandor. Josephine is not an honest woman. She may know the type of people that haunt the night resorts, yet who, for all that, need not be murderers." "Then, Juve, how do you account for it that during my visit Dixon tricked me and kept me from meeting Josephine while making believe to look for her? Is not that again a sign of complicity? Does not that show clearly that Josephine, realising that she is suspected in our eyes, has decided to evade us?" Juve smiled. "Fandor, my lad, you are endowed with a prodigious imagination. You impute to Dixon the worst intentions without any proof. He got Josephine away, you say? What makes you think so? If you did not see her it was due to collusion between them both. Why? As far as I can see, Josephine simply picked up an old lover of hers at the 'Crocodile' and went off with him as naturally as possible, preferring not to see the arrest of Loupart or of Chaleck. I admit that next day she simply took French leave of the worthy American, and you may be sure he knew nothing about her going." Fandor was silent and Juve resumed: "That being so, what can we bring against Dixon? Merely that he knows Josephine." "You are right, Juve; perhaps I went too far with my deductions, but to speak frankly, I don't see clearly what we are to do now. All our trails are crossed. Loupart is in flight, Chaleck vanished, and as for Josephine, I doubt our finding her again for ever so long." All the while the journalist was speaking, Juve had remained leaning against the window, watching the passers-by. "Fandor, come and see! By the omnibus, there. The person who is going to cross." The journalist burst out: "Well, I'm damned!" "You see, Fandor, you must never swear to anything." "Well, ain't we going to catch and arrest her?" "Why? Do you think her being in this street is due to chance? Look, she is crossing; she is coming straight here. She is entering the house. I tell you in a few moments Josephine will have climbed my stairs and will be seated cosily in this armchair, which I get ready and set full in the light." Fandor could not get over his astonishment. "Did you make an appointment with her?" "Not at all." Jean, the detective's servant, came into the room and announced: "There is a lady waiting in the sitting-room. She would not give her name." "Show her in, Jean." A few moments later Josephine entered. "Good day, Mademoiselle," cried Juve in a cordial tone. "What fresh news have you to tell us?" Loupart's mistress stood in the middle of the room, somewhat taken aback. But Juve set her at ease. "Sit down, Josephine. You mustn't mind my friend Fandor. He has just been telling me about your friend Dixon." "You know him, sir?" "A little," said Fandor. "And you, Mademoiselle, have been seeing something of him lately?" "I happened to meet him at the 'Crocodile.'" "And took a liking to him?"