"Monsieur is right, she is drowned; but it is not the aquarium--it is the Seine. It appears," the wine-merchant's wife went on, "that last night she made _la fête_ in the streets. We over here lock up, well, at a decent hour, as monsieur will understand. Those who are in stay, those who are out--well, monsieur will understand----" Yes, he understood. Would she go on? "Mademoiselle Lascaze had evidently lost her key of entry--so it appears. We have this story from her comrades, a bad lot, like herself. She tried to get in about five o'clock--they left her knocking at the door. She must then have wandered the streets for an hour, for it was six when they met her again by chance quite by the Pont des Arts. They all had something to drink and started across the river, when the poor thing offered to give an exhibition of her circus feat and, before anyone could stop her, had dived off the bridge into the Seine." He had, then, seen her knocking there in the dawn, and if he had hastened a little--not held conventionally back---- "It is all _en règle_," assured Madame Branchard. "As my husband will tell monsieur, he has been to the morgue to identify her." The wine-merchant now at his cue, nodded impressively. "Mais oui, I assure monsieur she was quite natural--and she was une belle femme tout le même----" His wife glanced at him scornfully. "She was a bad mother, and all the house will tell you so. Many times, monsieur, I have gone in with my pass-key and taken the poor little thing downstairs in my arms to give her all the supper she would have had, and many a time, on cold nights, when there was not a stick of fire in their room, and the woman abroad--many a time I have had her sleep in our bed with us--my husband will tell monsieur." The wine-merchant nodded assent. "She speaks the truth, monsieur." Bulstrode found presence of mind to wonder. "I suppose Mademoiselle Lascaze left debts?" The husband and wife exchanged glances. "_En vérité_, monsieur," confessed Madame Branchard, "she has left a few, but they are small and not significant; a hundred francs will cover them. It is not for our pockets we are come to monsieur." Here the sentimentality having been disposed of by the woman, the husband broke in: "It is like this, Monsieur Balstro" (Bulstrode saw how intimately the _hôtel meublé_ knew him): "In a few moments even the authorities will be here to take charge of the woman's effects and Simone will become the property of the State. She has no relatives, as Monsieur will understand. Thinking, therefore, that monsieur, _who is so good_, might for some reason care to take an interest in the child's future----" Branchard coughed and paused. Having given Mr. Bulstrode ample time to speak, to show some signs of life and of his usual quick benevolence, and being greeted with nothing other than quiet, meditative silence, the merchant shrugged and comprehensively relinquished suppositions and hopes in one large gesture.