It was light in the evening. One by one the rooms in LÂriboisiÈre were being lit up.

The one exception was the grim amphitheatre, whose occupants would never need to see again.

Suddenly—and if anyone had been present, he would have experienced the most frightful impression it is possible to conceive—a corpse stirred.

Having assured himself that the door between the amphitheatre and the gallery was shut, the corpse, shivering with cold, threw off the shroud which enveloped him, and set to work to move his legs and arms about to start up his circulation. Then at the far end of the apartment this living corpse discovered, under a zinc basin attached to the wall, a bundle of linen and garments, which he seized upon.

His body shaking with cold, the man dressed himself in haste, and then waited until he considered his clothes sufficiently dry not to attract attention.

Carefully ascertaining that the gallery was deserted, he then entered it and walked rapidly to the courtyard. To the right of the main gateway, the smaller gate leading into the Rue Ambroise ParÉ was open.

The man passed under the archway, and in a moment would have been clear of LÂriboisiÈre, when the doorkeeper barred his way.

"Excuse me, who goes there?"

Then, having looked more closely:

"Why it's Doctor Chaleck! You're late in leaving us this evening, doctor. I suppose you've been kept pretty busy in ward 22?"

"That's so," replied Chaleck, for it was he. "That's why I'm in a hurry, Charles."

And Chaleck, with an impatient gesture, was about to slip out, but the porter stopped him again.

"One moment, doctor; you must register first."

"Is this a new hospital regulation?"

"No, doctor, it's the police who have ordered everyone entering or leaving the hospital to sign his name in this book."

The porter, having taken Doctor Chaleck into his lodge, opened a new register, and pointing to half a dozen names already written on the first page, he added:

"You'll not be in bad company; you're to sign just below Professor Hugard."

Chaleck smiled. "Tell me the latest news, Charles. Do they suspect anyone?"

"All I know is that fifty of them came here with dirty shoes, made a hubbub round the patients, put the service out of gear, and in the end caught nobody at all. But if the culprit is still here, he won't get out without the bracelets on his wrists!"

An equivocal smile touched the pale lips of Chaleck. It might be the weird inhabitant of the little house in CitÉ Frochot was not so sure as the porter was of the astuteness of the police. Perhaps he was thinking that a few hours before a certain Doctor Chaleck, hemmed in a passage with no exits and about to be compelled to show, like everyone else, the tips of his fingers, had, under the nose of the officers, and even of the artful and astute Juve, suddenly vanished, gone out of the world of the living and thought it necessary, for reasons he alone knew, to assume the rigidity of a corpse, the stillness of death. But the smile in a moment became frozen.

The doctor who had kept both hands in his pockets while talking to the porter, suddenly felt a sharp twinge in the fingers of his right hand, and it became moist and lukewarm. This happened as the porter held out the register for him to sign.

"Charles," he cried, "I'm in a great hurry; while I'm signing, please go out and stop the first taxi that passes."

"Certainly, sir," replied the man.

Scarcely had the doorkeeper turned his back when the doctor, with infinite precautions drew out his right hand and with evident difficulty began to write, holding the pen between the third and fourth fingers, as though unable to use the fore and middle ones.

As he was finishing his entry, he made what was doubtless an unintended movement, something unexpected happened, for he suddenly turned pale and repressed a heavy oath. Charles was just coming back to the lodge.

"Your taxi is here, Doctor."

"Right. Thank you."

Chaleck closed the register abruptly, jumped into the motor, threw an address to the driver, who got under way. On seeing the doctor shut the register, Charles cried: "The devil—there's no blotting paper in it, it will be sure to blot!"

And, though it was too late, the careful man rushed to the book and opened it. His eyes became fixed on the page where the signatures were. He stared, wide-eyed.

"Oh!—Oh!—" he murmured.