“Of course not,” she replied, and turning to the waiter ordered him to show the caller up. “There are two gentlemen,” he explained. “Then show them both up,” answered Ulrica. “Be sharp, please, as we are in a hurry.” “Yes, madame,” responded the waiter, a young Swiss, and went below. “I suppose they are the pair I saw last night,” I said. “The police on the Continent seem always to hunt in couples. One never sees a single gendarme, either in France or Italy.” “One goes to keep the other cheerful, I believe,” Ulrica remarked, and a few moments later the two callers were shown in. They were not the same as I had seen in the Director’s room at the Casino. “I regret this intrusion,” said the elder, a dark-bearded, rather unwholesome-looking individual with lank black hair. “I have, I believe, the honor of addressing Mademoiselle Rosselli?” “That’s me,” I responded briefly, for I did not intend them to cause me to lose a most enjoyable trip in that most chic of latter-day conveyances, an automobile. “We are police agents, as you have possibly seen from my card, and have called merely to ask whether you can identify either of these photographs,” and he pulled forth two cabinet pictures from his pocket and handed them over to me. One was a prison photograph of an elderly, sad-eyed convict, with baldish head and scraggy beard, while the other was a well-taken likeness of a foppishly dressed young man of about twenty-eight, the upward trend of his mustache giving him a foreign appearance. Both were strangers to me. I had never seen either of them in the flesh, at least to my knowledge, and Ulrica was also agreed that she had never seen any one bearing the slightest resemblance to either. “Mademoiselle is absolutely certain?” the detective asked of me. “Absolutely,” I responded. “Will mademoiselle have the kindness to allow her memory to go back for one moment to the day of the unfortunate gentleman’s death?” asked the detective with an amiable air. “At the time M’sieur Thorne was at the table at Monte Carlo and playing with success there were, I believe, many persons around him.” “Yes, a crowd.” “And near him, almost at his elbow, you did not see this man?” he inquired, indicating the bearded convict. I shook my head. “I really do not recollect any face of that excited crowd,” I responded. “He may have been there, but I certainly did not see him.” “Nor did I,” chimed in Ulrica. “Then I much regret troubling you,” he said, bowing politely. “In this affair we are, as you of course know, making very searching inquiries on account of representations made by the Ambassador of the United States in Paris. We intend, if possible, to solve the mystery.” “And the man who accosted me at the ball last night,” I said. “Do you suspect him to be the original of that photograph?” “At the ball last night? I do not follow mademoiselle.”