"Now, with the exception of Mrs. Middlemore, there was only one regular tenant in the house, M. Felix, who had lived there for nearly two years, and concerning whom, up to the night of January 16th, very little appears to have been known, except that he was a retired gentleman, living on his means, fond of pleasure, and of a generous disposition to those who served him well. Mrs. Middlemore speaks in the highest terms of him, but she judges only from one point of view, that of a landlady who has a liberal lodger. Otherwise, she has no knowledge of him, and cannot say where he came from, whether he was married or single (the circumstance of his living a bachelor life would not definitely decide this question), or whether he has any relations in any part of the world. There are many gentlemen of the description of M. Felix pursuing their mysterious careers in this great city, a goodly number of them under false names.
"M. Felix was a very peculiar gentleman. He paid for the entire house, although he occupied only three rooms, a sitting-room, a dining-room, and a bedroom. His stipulation when he first entered into possession was that under no circumstances should any other tenant but himself be allowed to occupy a room, and he went so far as to refuse permission to Mrs. Middlemore for any friends of hers to sleep in the building. Her duties consisted in attending to him and to his rooms, which she entered and set in order only when he directed her, and for these slight services she was extravagantly paid. Such a tenant was a treasure, and she appreciated him accordingly, not venturing to disobey him in the slightest particular. He had taken the greatest pains to impress upon her that she was never, under any circumstances whatever, to come to his rooms unless she was summoned, and from what we have gathered of his character, M. Felix was a gentleman who could be stern as well as pleasant, and was not a person who would allow his orders to be disobeyed without making the delinquent suffer for it. These imperative instructions rendered Constable Wigg's course difficult. Mrs. Middlemore had left M. Felix in the house when she went to fetch her supper-beer, and it was in the highest degree improbable that he should have quitted it during her absence. He was not a young man, he was fond of his ease, and the storm was raging furiously. Nothing less than a matter of life or death would tempt a man of M. Felix's disposition from his cosy fireside on such a night. Constable Wigg suggested that he should go up-stairs to M. Felix's rooms, and ascertain whether he was in and safe, but Mrs. Middlemore would not listen to the suggestion, and of course without her consent Constable Wigg could not carry his proposition into effect. In a casual examination of those parts of the premises which Mrs. Middlemore allowed him to enter he saw nothing to excite his suspicions, and he decided to wait for the return of Constable Nightingale before he proceeded further.