Here was a notice purporting to be signed by himself, and referring to a bearskin coat, said (quite untruly) to have been left in his own hotel. A bearskin coat! The very words breathe of Nihilism, dynamite, stratagems, and spoils. Then the advertisement was in English, which is, at present and till further notice, the language spoken by the brave Irish. M. Dupin, as a Liberal, had every sympathy with the brave Irish in their noble struggle for whatever they _are_ struggling for; but he did not wish his hostelry to become, so to speak, the mountain-cave of Freedom, and the great secret storehouse of nitro-glycerine. With a view to elucidating the mystery of the advertisement, he had introduced the police on his premises, and the police had hardly settled down in its _affût_, when, lo! a stranger had been captured, in most suspicious circumstances. M. Dupin felt very clever indeed, and his friends envied him the distinction and advertisement which were soon to be his. When Maitland appeared, as he did in due course, before the Juge d’Instruction, he attempted to fall back on the obsolete _Civis Romanus sum!_ He was an English citizen. He had written to the English ambassador, or rather to an old St. Gatien’s man, an _attaché_ of the embassy, whom he luckily happened to know. But this great ally chanced to be out of town, and his name availed Maitland nothing in his interview with the Juge d’Instruction. That magistrate, sitting with his back to the light, gazed at Maitland with steady, small gray eyes, while the scribble of the pen of the _greffier_, as he took down the Englishman’s deposition, sounded shrill in the bleak torture-chamber of the law. “Your name?” asked the Juge d’Instruction. “Maitland,” replied the Fellow of St. Gatien’s. “You lie!” said the Juge d’Instruction. “You entered the name of Buchanan in the book of the hotel.” “My name is on my cards, and on that letter,” said Maitland, keeping his temper wonderfully. The documents in question lay on a table, as _pièces justificatives_. “These cards, that letter, you have robbed them from some unfortunate person, and have draped (_afflublé_) yourself in the trappings of your victim! Where is his body?” This was the working hypothesis which the Juge d’Instruction had formed within himself to account for the general conduct and proceedings of the person under examination. “Where is _whose_ body?” asked Maitland, in unspeakable surprise. “Buchanan,” said the Juge d’Instruction. (And to hear the gallantry with which he attacked this difficult name, of itself insured respect.) “Buchanan, you are acting on a deplorable system. Justice is not deceived by your falsehoods, nor eluded by your subterfuges. She is calm, stern, but merciful. Unbosom yourself freely” (_répandez franchement_), “and you may learn that justice can be lenient It is your interest to be frank.” (_Il est de votre intérêt d’être franc_.)