the actual cause of death.  The little copper-faced tailor’s wife adored her husband; he had no money and no enemies; La Cibot’s fortune and the marine-store dealer’s motives were alike hidden in the shade.  Poulain knew the portress and her way of thinking perfectly well; he thought her capable of tormenting Pons, but he saw that she had neither motive enough nor wit enough for murder; and besides—­every time the doctor came and she gave her husband a draught, she took a spoonful herself.  Poulain himself, the only person who might have thrown light on the matter, inclined to believe that this was one of the unaccountable freaks of disease, one of the astonishing exceptions which make medicine so perilous a profession.  And in truth, the little tailor’s unwholesome life and unsanitary surroundings had unfortunately brought him to such a pass that the trace of copper-poisoning was like the last straw.  Gossips and neighbors took it upon themselves to explain the sudden death, and no suspicion of blame lighted upon Remonencq.

“Oh! this long time past I have said that M. Cibot was not well,” cried one.

“He worked too hard, he did,” said another; “he heated his blood.”

“He would not listen to me,” put in a neighbor; “I advised him to walk out of a Sunday and keep Saint Monday; two days in the week is not too much for amusement.”

In short, the gossip of the quarter, the tell-tale voice to which Justice, in the person of the commissary of police, the king of the poorer classes, lends an attentive ear—­gossip explained the little tailor’s demise in a perfectly satisfactory manner.  Yet M. Poulain’s pensive air and uneasy eyes embarrassed Remonencq not a little, and at sight of the doctor he offered eagerly to go in search of M. Trognon, Fraisier’s acquaintance.  Fraisier turned to La Cibot to say in a low voice, “I shall come back again as soon as the will is made.  In spite of your sorrow, you must look for squalls.”  Then he slipped away like a shadow and met his friend the doctor.

“Ah, Poulain!” he exclaimed, “it is all right.  We are safe!  I will tell you about it to-night.  Look out a post that will suit you, you shall have it!  For my own part, I am a justice of the peace.  Tabareau will not refuse me now for a son-in-law.  And as for you, I will undertake that you shall marry Mlle. Vitel, granddaughter of our justice of the peace.”

Fraisier left Poulain reduced to dumb bewilderment by these wild words; bounced like a ball into the boulevard, hailed an omnibus, and was set down ten minutes later by the modern coach at the corner of the Rue de Choiseul.  By this time it was nearly four o’clock.  Fraisier felt quite sure of a word in private with the Presidente, for officials seldom leave the Palais de Justice before five o’clock.