"Poor Vérot!… He was a good man, who thought only of the service, of his duty. Instead of going and getting himself seen to—and who knows? Perhaps he might have been saved—he came back here in the hope of communicating his secret. Poor Vérot!"
"Was he married? Are there any children?" asked Don Luis.
"He leaves a wife and three children," replied the Prefect.
"I will look after them," said Don Luis simply.
Then, when they brought a doctor and when M. Desmalions gave orders for the corpse to be carried to another room, Don Luis took the doctor aside and said:
"There is no doubt that Inspector Vérot was poisoned. Look at his wrist: you will see the mark of a puncture with a ring of inflammation round it."
"Then he was pricked in that place?"
"Yes, with a pin or the point of a pen; and not as violently as they may have wished, because death did not ensue until some hours later."
The messengers removed the corpse; and soon there was no one left in the office except the five people whom the Prefect had originally sent for. The American Secretary of Embassy and the Peruvian attaché, considering their continued presence unnecessary, went away, after warmly complimenting Don Luis Perenna on his powers of penetration.
Next came the turn of Major d'Astrignac, who shook his former subordinate by the hand with obvious affection. And Maître Lepertuis and Perenna, having fixed an appointment for the payment of the legacy, were themselves
