"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most
five hundred francs!"



_The Man with the Pale Eyes_


Monsieur Pierre Agénor De Vargnes, the Examining Magistrate, was the
exact opposite of a practical joker. He was dignity, staidness,
correctness personified. As a sedate man, he was quite incapable of
being guilty, even in his dreams, of anything resembling a practical
joke, however remotely. I know nobody to whom he could be compared,
unless it be the present president of the French Republic. I think it
is useless to carry the analogy any further, and having said thus much,
it will be easily understood that a cold shiver passed through me when
Monsieur Pierre Agénor de Vargnes did me the honor of sending a lady to
await on me.

At about eight o'clock, one morning last winter, as he was leaving the
house to go to the _Palais de Justice_, his footman handed him a card,
on which was printed:

DOCTOR JAMES FERDINAND,
_Member of the Academy of Medicine,
Port-au-Prince,
Chevalier of the Legion of Honor._

At the bottom of the card there was written in pencil: