Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner!
Be at my office again at nine o'clock--in the meantime, _au
revoir!_"
The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and
re-examined; the gambling-house was strictly searched all through
from top to bottom; the prisoners were separately interrogated;
and two of the less guilty among them made a confession. I
discovered that the Old Soldier was the master of the
gambling-house--_justice_ discovered that he had been drummed out
of the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of
all sorts of villainies since; that he was in possession of
stolen property, which the owners identified; and that he, the
croupier, another accomplice, and the woman who had made my cup
of coffee, were all in the secret of the bedstead. There appeared
some reason to doubt whether the inferior persons attached to the
house knew anything of the suffocating machinery; and they
received the benefit of that doubt, by being treated simply as
thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two head
myrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my
coffee was imprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular
attendants at the gambling-house were considered "suspicious" and
placed under "surveillance"; and I became, for one whole week
(which is a long time) the head "lion" in Parisian society.
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