The supper was delicate, _recherché_, Parisian; the wine was Johannisberger of princely quality, and a magnum of Mumms decanted in a cut-crystal pitcher appeared with the last course. The two men talked of general topics during supper. It was only when the waiters had withdrawn, and when Sigismond Trottier had thrown himself back in his chair and lighted his cigarette, that Heathcote approached the business of the evening. It was half-past one o'clock, and the roll of wheels upon the asphalte below the open window had been gradually diminishing. There was no longer the roar of the Boulevard to disturb the speakers. "If I can be of the slightest use to you, as an embodied chronicle of Paris, command me," said Trottier. "Here I am at your service--an open book. You have only to turn my leaves." "Do you remember a double murder--the murder of an actress and her lover--which happened ten years ago, in the forest of Saint-Germain?" "Do I remember? Yes, as if the thing had happened last week; and for a good reason. The man who was suspected--the lover, or, as some thought, the husband, of the actress--was my familiar friend." "Great Heaven!" exclaimed Heathcote, almost starting from his chair. "Then my instinct was right. It told me that I should get on the track of that man--it told me that you must have known him." "The man was well known to me and to a chosen few, but only a few," replied Trottier. "He was a man of eccentric habits--a man of considerable talent and large intellect, who could afford to live his own life, and lived it. What he did with himself in the daytime none of us knew: whether he slept away half his daylight life, or shut himself in his den and smoked and dreamed and read. The latter idea seemed likely enough, for he was a man who had read widely. He was a delightful companion, brilliant, genial, lavish to his friends, a splendid host. I have supped with him and Marie Prévol many a night in this house--sometimes making the third in a cosy trio, sometimes one of that small choice circle with which he occasionally surrounded himself." "Then I take it that he was known in general society, either the uppermost or the middle circles." "Not the least in the world. He was a man who scorned society, hated ceremonies and conventionalities. I never saw him in a dress-suit. I doubt if he possessed one. When he went to a theatre, it was to sit in a dark corner, where he could see without being seen. He detested crowds. He had nothing to gain from the great world, and could afford to outrage all its rules and regulations." "Was he a thoroughbred Parisian?" "Far from it. He was an American, but he had lived so long in Paris as to be almost as Parisian as a citizen born and bred." "Had he made his money, or inherited it?"