Duncombe dared do no more than cast one single horrified glance at it.

Madame set down the lamp upon the table, and made the room hideous with shrieks.
"Good God!" she cried.

"It is the little one who is dead!" Duncombe himself fetched in the gendarmes, and waited whilst they took voluminous notes of the occurrence.

The murder seemed to them and to Madame to be one of a very common class.

The assassin had left no clue whatever behind him.