It’s a very short time ago, yesterday as it were, that one Sunday afternoon about four o’clock, the whole Quartier du Marais was in an uproar.

Rumor asserted that one of the most respectable merchants in the Hue Boi-de-Sicile had disappeared, and all efforts to find him continued fruitless.

The strange event was discussed in all the shops in the neighborhood; there were groups at the doors of all the fruit-sellers, every moment some terrified housewife arrived, bringing fresh particulars.

The grocer on the corner had the best and latest news, the most reliable, too, for he received his information from the lips of the cook who lived in the house.

“So,” said he, “yesterday evening, after dinner, our neighbor, Monsieur Jandidier, went down to his cellar to get a bottle of wine, and was never seen again. He disappeared, vanished, evaporated!”

It occasionally happens that mysterious disappearances are mentioned. The public becomes excited, and prudent people buy sword-canes.

Policemen hear absurd reports, and shrug their shoulders. They know the wrong side of the carefully embroidered canvas. They investigate, and find, instead of artless falsehoods, the truth; instead of romances, sorrowful stories. Yet, up to a certain point, the grocer of the Rue Saint Louis told the truth.

M. Jandidier, manufacturer of imitation jewelry, had not been at home for the last twenty-four hours.

M. Theodore Jandidier was a man fifty-eight years old, very stout and very bald, who had made a large fortune in business. He was supposed to have a considerable income from stocks and bonds, and his business brought him annually, on an average, fifty thousand francs. He was beloved and respected in his neighborhood, and justly so; his honesty was above suspicion, his morality rigid. Married late in life to a penniless relative, he had made her perfectly happy. He had an only daughter, a pretty, graceful girl, named ThÉrÈse, whom he worshiped. She had been engaged to the eldest son of Schmidt the banker—member of the firm Schmidt, Gubenheim & Worb—M. Gustave; but the match was broken off, nobody knew why, for the young people were desperately in love with each other. It was said by Jandidier’s acquaintances that Schmidt senior, a perfect skinflint, had demanded a dowry far beyond the merchant’s means.

Notified by public rumor, which hourly exaggerated the story, the commissary of police went to the home of the man already called “the victim,” to obtain more exact information.

He found Mme. and Mlle. Jandidier in such terrible grief that it was with great difficulty he gleaned the truth. At last he learned the following details:

The day before, Saturday, M. Jandidier had dined with his family as usual, though his appetite was not good, owing, he said, to a violent headache.

After dinner he went to his stores, gave some orders, and then entered his office.

At half past six he came upstairs again, and told his wife he was going to walk.

And he had not been seen since!

After carefully noting these particulars, the commissary requested Mme. Jandidier to let him speak with her alone a few minutes. She made a sign of assent, and Mlle. ThÉrÈse left the room.

“Pardon the question I am about to ask, madame,” said the police officer. “Do you know whether your husband—again I beg you to excuse me—had any ties outside of his own family?”

Mme. Jandidier started up; anger dried her tears.

“I have been married twenty-three years, monsieur, and my husband has never returned home later than ten o’clock.”

“Was your husband in the habit of going to any club or cafÉ, madame?” continued the officer.

“Never; I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“Did he usually carry valuables on his person?”

“I don’t know; I attended to my housekeeping and didn’t trouble myself about business matters.”

It was impossible to get anything more from the haughty wife, who was fairly bewildered by sorrow.

Having performed his duty, the commissary thought he ought to give the poor woman a little commonplace consolation.

But on withdrawing, after an examination of the house, he felt very anxious, and began to suspect that a crime had been committed.

That very evening one of the most skillful members of the detective force, RÉtiveau, better known in the Rue de Jerusalem under the name of Maitre Magloire, was put on M. Jandidier’s track, supplied with an excellent photograph of the merchant.

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