The body from the Lyons Station --he of the murder in the sleeping-car--is it yet arrived?"
"But surely, at your service, Chief," replied the old man, obsequiously. "If the gentlemen will give themselves the trouble to enter the office, I will lead them behind, direct into the mortuary chamber.
There are many people in yonder."
It was the usual crowd of sightseers passing slowly before the plate glass of this, the most terrible shop-front in the world, where the goods exposed, the merchandise, are hideous corpses laid out in rows upon the marble slabs, the battered, tattered remnants of outraged humanity, insulted by the most terrible indignities in death.
Who make up this curious throng, and what strange morbid motives drag them there?
Those fat, comfortable-looking women, with their baskets on their arms; the decent workmen in dusty blouses, idling between the hours of work; the riffraff of the streets, male or female, in various stages of wretchedness and degradation?
A few, no doubt, are impelled by motives we cannot challenge--they are torn and tortured by suspense, trembling lest they may recognize missing dear ones among the exposed; others stare carelessly at the day's "take," wondering, perhaps, if they may come to the same fate; one or two are idle sightseers, not always French, for the Morgue is a favourite haunt with the irrepressible tourist doing Paris.
Strangest of all, the murderer himself, the doer of the fell deed, comes here, to the very spot where his victim lies stark and reproachful, and stares at it spellbound, fascinated, filled more with remorse, perchance, than fear at the risk he runs.
So common is this trait, that in mysterious murder cases the police of Paris keep a disguised officer among the crowd at the Morgue, and have thereby made many memorable arrests.
"This way, gentlemen, this way;" and the keeper of the Morgue led the party through one or two rooms into the inner and back recesses of the buildings.
It was behind the scenes of the Morgue, and they were made free of its most gruesome secrets as they passed along.
The temperature had suddenly fallen far below freezing-point, and the icy cold chilled to the very marrow.
Still worse was an all-pervading, acrid odour of artificially suspended animal decay.
The cold-air process, that latest of scientific contrivances to arrest the waste of tissue, has now been applied at the Morgue to preserve and keep the bodies fresh, and allow them to be for a longer time exposed than when running water was the only aid.
There are, moreover, many specially contrived refrigerating chests, in which those still unrecognized corpses are laid by for months, to be dragged out, if needs be, like carcasses of meat.
"What a loathsome place!" cried Sir Charles.
"Hurry up, Jack! let us get out of this, in Heaven's name!"
"Where's my man?" quickly asked Colonel Papillon in response to this appeal.
"There, the third from the left," whispered M. Flocon. "We hoped you would recognize the corpse at once."
"That?
Impossible! You do not expect it, surely?
Why, the face is too much mangled for any one to say who it is."
"Are there no indications, no marks or signs, to say whether it is Quadling or not?" asked the Judge in a greatly disappointed tone.
"Absolutely nothing.
And yet I am quite satisfied it is not him.
For the simple reason that--"
"Yes, yes, go on."
"That Quadling in person is standing out there among the crowd."
CHAPTER XX
M. Flocon was the first to realize the full meaning of Colonel Papillon's surprising statement.
"Run, run, La Peche!
Have the outer doors closed; let no one leave the place."
"Draw back, gentlemen!" he went on, and he hustled his companions with frantic haste out at the back of the mortuary chamber. "Pray Heaven he has not seen us!
He would know us, even if we do not him."
Then with no less haste he seized Colonel Papillon by the arm and hurried him by the back passages through the office into the outer, public chamber, where the astonished crowd stood, silent and perturbed, awaiting explanation of their detention.
"Quick, monsieur!" whispered the Chief; "point him out to me."
The request was not unnecessary, for when Colonel Papillon went forward, and, putting his hand on a man's shoulder, saying,
"Mr. Quadling, I think," the police officer was scarcely able to restrain his surprise.
The person thus challenged was very unlike any one he had seen before that day, Ripaldi most of all.
The moustache was gone, the clothes were entirely changed; a pair of dark green spectacles helped the disguise.
It was strange indeed that Papillon had known him; but at the moment of recognition Quadling had removed his glasses, no doubt that he might the better examine the object of his visit to the Morgue, that gruesome record of his own fell handiwork.
Naturally he drew back with well-feigned indignation, muttering half-unintelligible words in French, denying stoutly both in voice and gesture all acquaintance with the person who thus abruptly addressed him.
"This is not to be borne," he cried. "Who are you that dares--"
"Ta! ta!" quietly put in M. Flocon; "we will discuss that fully, but not here.
Come into the office; come, I say, or must we use force?"
There was no escaping now, and with a poor attempt at bravado the stranger was led away.
"Now, Colonel Papillon, look at him well.
Do you know him?
Are you satisfied it is--"
"Mr. Quadling, late banker, of Rome.