want to be very precise," Gervais Aventin remarked. "Well, when the train pulled up I looked for the first-class carriage; it was a few yards away from me, and the corridor was alongside the platform. I got into the corridor and wanted to choose my compartment. I remember clearly that I went first to the rear compartment, the last one in the carriage. I could not get into that, for the door opening into it from the corridor was locked."
"That is correct," Juve nodded. "I know from the guard that that compartment was empty. What did you do then?"
"I turned back and, passing the ladies' compartment and the lavatory, decided to take my seat in the one next it communicating with the corridor. But luck was against me: a pane of glass was broken and it was bitterly cold there; so I had to fall back on the only compartment left, the smoking one towards the front of the train."
"Were there many of you there?"
"I thought at first that I was going to have a fellow-traveller, for there was some luggage and a rug arranged on the seat. But the passenger must have been in the lavatory, for I didn't see him. I lay down on the other seat and went to sleep. When I got out of the train at Limoges, my fellow-traveller must have been in the lavatory again, for I remember quite distinctly that he was not on the opposite seat. I thought at the time how easy it would have been for me to steal his luggage and walk off with his valise: nobody would have seen me."
Juve had listened intently to every word of the story. He asked for one further detail with a certain anxiety in his tone.
"Tell me, sir, when you woke up did you have any impression that the baggage arranged on the seat opposite yours had been disturbed at all? Might the traveller, whom you did not see, have come in for a sleep while you yourself were asleep?"
Gervais Aventin made a little gesture of uncertainty.
"I can't answer in the affirmative, M. Juve. I did not notice that; and, besides, when I got into the compartment, the shade was pulled down over the lamp, and the curtains were drawn across the windows. I hardly saw how the things were arranged. And then, when I got out at Limoges I was in a hurry, and only thought about finding my ticket and jumping on to the platform. But I do not think the other fellow did take his place while I was asleep. I did not hear a sound, and yet I did not sleep at all heavily."
"So you travelled in a first-class compartment in the slow train from Paris to Luchon on the night of the 23rd of December, and in that compartment there was the luggage of a traveller whom you did not see — who may not have been there?"
"Yes," said Gervais Aventin, and, as the detective sat silent for a moment, he enquired: "Is my information too vague to be of any use to you?"
Juve was wondering inwardly why the dickens Etienne Rambert was not in that compartment when, according to the depositions of the guard, he must have been there; but he said nothing of this. Instead, he said:
"Your information is most valuable, sir. You have told me everything I wanted to know."
Gervais Aventin displayed still more surprise.
"Well," he said, "by way of return, M. Juve, tell me something which puzzles me. How did you know I travelled by that train that night?"
The detective drew out his pocket-book, and from an inner pocket produced a first-class ticket, which he held out to the engineer.
"That is very simple," he replied. "Here is your ticket. I wanted to know exactly who everyone was who travelled in that first-class compartment, so I sent for all the first-class tickets which were given up by passengers who left the train at the different stations. That's how I got yours: it had been issued at Vierzon, the station where you got in, so I interrogated the clerk at the booking-office who gave me a description of you; then I sent down an inspector to Vierzon to make discreet enquiries, and he got me all the information I required. All I had to do then was to write and ask you to come here to-day; and the regrettable story of your broken relations with the lady was an ample guarantee to me that you would be punctual at the appointment!"
XIX
Jérôme Fandor
Whistling a quick-step, sure sign with him of a light heart, Juve opened the door of the little room where he had left Charles Rambert, and looked at the sleeping lad.
"It's a fine thing to be young," he remarked to the man he had left on guard; "that boy plunges into the wildest adventures and shaves the scaffold by an inch, and yet after one late night he sleeps as peacefully as any chancellor of the Legion of Honour!" He shook the lad with a friendly hand. "Get up, lazy-bones! It's ten o'clock: high time for me to carry you off."
"Where to?" the unhappy boy asked, rubbing his eyes.
"There's no doubt about inquisitiveness being your besetting sin," Juve replied cryptically. "Well, we've got a quarter of an hour's drive in front of us. But you're not going to prison; I'm going to take you home with me!"
Juve had taken off his collar and tie and put on an old jacket, had set a great bowl of bread and milk in front of Charles Rambert, and was leisurely enjoying his own breakfast.
"I didn't want to answer any questions just now," he said, "because I hate talking in cabs where I have to sit by a man's side, and can't see him or hear half he says. But now that we are snug and comfortable here, I've no right to keep you waiting any longer, and I'll give you a bit of good news."
"Snug" and "comfortable" were the right words with which to describe Juve's private abode. The detective had attained an honourable and lucrative position in his profession, and, exposed as he was in the course of his work to all manner of dangers and privations, had compensated himself by making an entirely satisfactory, if not luxurious, nest where he could rest after his labours.
When he had finished his breakfast he lighted a big cigar and sank into an easy chair, crossing his hands behind his head. He turned a steady gaze upon Charles Rambert, who was still completely puzzled, and half frightened by this sudden amiability, and did not know whether he was a prisoner or not.
"I will give you a bit of good news; that is, that you are innocent of the Langrune affair when you were Charles Rambert, and innocent also of the Danidoff affair, when you were Mademoiselle Jeanne. I need not say anything about the scrap last night, in which you played a still more distinguished part."
"Why tell me that?" asked Charles Rambert nervously. "Of course I know I did not rob Princess Sonia Danidoff; but how did you recognise me last night, and how did you find out that I was Mademoiselle Jeanne?"
Juve smiled, and shook back a lock of hair that was falling over his eyes.
"Listen, my boy: do you suppose that thundering blow you dealt the excellent Henri Verbier when he was making love to Mademoiselle Jeanne, could fail to make me determined to find out who that young lady was who had the strength of a man?"
The allusion made Charles Rambert most uneasy.
"But that does not explain how you recognised me in Paul to-night. I recognised you in Henri Verbier at the hotel, but I had no idea that it was you last night."
"That's nothing," said Juve with a shake of the head. "And you may understand once for all that when I have once looked anybody square in the face, he needs to be an uncommonly clever
