I determined to draw him out; not that he interested me in any way, but simply because such studies are instructive. Then, again, his account of his experiences might be still more instructive. When should I have a better opportunity? Here was a man steeped in the life of Paris up to his very eyelids, one thoroughly conversant with the peccadilloes of innumerable _viveurs_--peccadilloes interesting even to staid old painters, simply as object-lessons, especially those committed by the other gay Lothario: the fellow, for instance, who did not know she was dangerous until his letter of credit collapsed; or the peccadilloes of the beautiful moth who believed the candle lighting her path to be an incandescent bulb of joy, until her scorched wings hung about her bare shoulders: That kind of peccadillo. So I pushed back my chair, opened my cigar-case, and proceeded to adjust the end of my mental probe. There was really nothing better to do, even if I had no such surgical operation in view. It was still raining, and neither I nor the waiter could leave our Chinese-junk of an island until the downpour ceased or we were rescued by a lifeboat or an umbrella. "And this nephew of the Sultan," I began again between puffs, addressing my remark to the match in my companion's hand, which was now burning itself out at the extreme end of my cigar. "Is he a new admirer?" "Quite new--only ten days or so, I think." "And the one before--the old one--what does he think?" I asked this question with one of those cold, hollow, heartless laughs, such as croupiers are supposed to indulge in when they toss a five-franc piece back to a poor devil who has just lost his last hundred Napoleons at baccarat--I have never seen this done and have never heard the laugh, but that is the way the storybooks put it--particularly the blood-curdling part of the laugh. "You mean Pierre Channet, the painter, Monsieur?" I had, of course, never heard of Pierre Channet, the painter, in my life, but I nodded as knowingly as if I had been on the most intimate relations with him for years. Then, again, this was my only way of getting down to his personal level, the only way I could draw him out and get at his real character. By taking his side of the question, he would unbosom himself the more freely, and, perhaps, incidentally, some of the peccadilloes--some of the most wicked. "He will _not think_, Monsieur. They pulled him out of the river last month." "Drowned?" His answer gave me a little start, but I did not betray myself. "So they said. The water trickled along his nose for two days as he lay on the slab, before they found out who he was." "In the morgue?" I inquired in a tone of surprise. I spoke as if this part of the story had not reached me. "In the morgue, Monsieur." The repeated words came as cold and merciless as the drops of water that fell on poor Channet as he lay under the gas-jets. "Drowned himself for love of Mademoiselle Béraud, you say?"