"'Well, we will leave it where it is. Don't touch it, Mrs. Middlemore; it's loaded.' "Before he replaced it, however, he made the following note in his pocket-book: 'A Colt's double-action revolver, nickel plated, six shots, No. 819.' And, unseen by Mrs. Middlemore, he scratched on the metal with his penknife the initial F. Then he looked at his watch, and said-- "'It is nearly ten o'clock. My advice now is that you go and give the alarm to the police that the body of M. Felix has vanished.' "'You'll go along with me, sir?' "'No, for your sake I had better not be seen. Give me two minutes to get away, and then go for the police at once. I will come and see you again, and help you in every way I can.' "Shaking her hand, and leaving half a sovereign in it, our reporter, accompanied by Mrs. Middlemore, went to the street door, and left her standing there." CHAPTER XI. THE "EVENING MOON" IS INUNDATED WITH CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BODY OF M. FELIX. "As was to be expected, the news of the disappearance of the body of M. Felix caused the greatest excitement. In small villages trifling incidents are sufficient to create an interest; in great cities events of magnitude are required to stir the pulses of the people; and in both village and city, to arouse the public from their normal condition of apathy, it is necessary that the incidents must have local color. Soho was sufficiently central, and, it may be added, sufficiently mixed and mysterious in the character of its population, to fulfil this imperative condition of popularity. Every resident in London knows the locality, and is to some extent familiar with it; it is contiguous to the most fashionable thoroughfares; it is within a stone's throw of theatres of magnificent proportions; it gives shelter to foreign princes deposed for a time from their high estate, and to foreign votaries of vice of both sexes who, being outlaws, cannot pursue their infamous courses in their native lands. If we were asked which part of London contains the most varied material for the weaving of modern romance we should unhesitatingly point to the region of Soho. A careless stroller through those thoroughfares little dreams of the strange and wondrous life which beats beneath the apparently placid, the undeniably squalid, aspect of this pregnant locality. The elderly woman, poorly clad and closely veiled, who glides past him is a prominent member of a Royal family who for a long period held the reins of power in one of the greatest European nations; she lives now in a garret upon dry bread and German sausage, and makes her own bed and fire. Yesterday she wore a crown of diamonds, to-day she wears a crown of sorrow. The attenuated man, whose worn-out garments hang loosely upon his spare body, and who is now studying _carte du jour_ in the window of a low French restaurant, nervously fumbling at the same moment the few loose coins in his pocket, was, in years gone by,