“At last you begin to open your eyes, you begin to understand. Yes,
there are people who hate you because of the wrong they have done you;
there are people to whom your presence in Paris is a constant danger,
and who will not feel safe till they are rid of you.”
“But who are these people, monsieur? Tell me, who dares send this
money?”
“If I knew, my dear Prosper, my task would be at an end, for then I
would know who committed the robbery. But we will continue our searches.
I have finally procured evidence which will sooner or later become
convincing proof. I have heretofore only made deductions more or less
probable; I now possess knowledge which proves that I was not mistaken.
I walked in darkness: now I have a light to guide me.”
As Prosper listened to M. Verduret’s reassuring words, he felt hope
arising in his breast.
“Now,” said M. Verduret, “we must take advantage of this evidence,
gained by the imprudence of our enemies, without delay. We will begin
with the porter.”
He opened the door and called out:
“I say, my good man, step here a moment.”
The porter entered, looking very much surprised at the authority
exercised over his lodger by this stranger.
“Who gave you this letter?” said M. Verduret.
“A messenger, who said he was paid for bringing it.”
“Do you know him?”
“I know him well; he is the errand-runner who keeps his cart at the
corner of the Rue Pigalle.”
“Go and bring him here.”
After the porter had gone, M. Verduret drew from his pocket his diary,
and compared a page of it with the notes which he had spread over the
table.
“These notes were not sent by the thief,” he said, after an attentive
examination of them.
“Do you think so, monsieur?”
“I am certain of it; that is, unless the thief is endowed with
extraordinary penetration and forethought. One thing is certain: these
ten thousand francs are not part of the three hundred and fifty thousand
which were stolen from the safe.”
“Yet,” said Prosper, who could not account for this certainty on the
part of his protector, “yet----”
“There is no doubt about it: I have the numbers of all the stolen
notes.”
“What! When even I did not have them?”
“But the bank did, fortunately. When we undertake an affair we must
anticipate everything, and forget nothing. It is a poor excuse for a
man to say, ‘I did not think of it’ when he commits some oversight. I
thought of the bank.”
If, in the beginning, Prosper had felt some repugnance about confiding
in his father’s friend, the feeling had now disappeared.
He understood that alone, scarcely master of himself, governed only
by the inspirations of inexperience, never would he have the patient
perspicacity of this singular man.
Verduret continued talking to himself, as if he had absolutely forgotten
Prosper’s presence:
“Then, as this package did not come from the thief, it can only come
from the other person, who was near the safe at the time of the robbery,
but could not prevent it, and now feels remorse. The probability of
two persons assisting at the robbery, a probability suggested by the
scratch, is now converted into undeniable certainty. _Ergo_, I was
right.”
Prosper listening attentively tried hard to comprehend this monologue,
which he dared not interrupt.
“Let us seek,” went on the fat man, “this second person, whose
conscience pricks him, and yet who dares not reveal anything.”
He read the letter over several times, scanning the sentences, and
weighing every word.
“Evidently this letter was composed by a woman,” he finally said. “Never
would one man doing another man a service, and sending him money, use
the word ‘succor.’ A man would have said, loan, money, or some other
equivalent, but succor, never. No one but a woman, ignorant of masculine
susceptibilities, would have naturally made use of this word to express
the idea it represents. As to the sentence, ‘There is one heart,’ and so
on, it could only have been written by a woman.”
“You are mistaken, monsieur,” said Prosper: “no woman is mixed up in
this affair.”
M. Verduret paid no attention to this interruption, perhaps he did not
hear it; perhaps he did not care to argue the matter.
“Now, let us see if we can discover whence the printed words were taken
to compose this letter.”
He approached the window, and began to study the pasted words with all
the scrupulous attention which an antiquarian would devote to an old,
half-effaced manuscript.
“Small type,” he said, “very slender and clear; the paper is thin and
glossy. Consequently, these words have not been cut from a newspaper,
magazine, or even a novel. I have seen type like this, I recognize it at
once; Didot often uses it, so does Mme. de Tours.”
He stopped with his mouth open, and eyes fixed, appealing laboriously to
his memory.
Suddenly he struck his forehead exultantly.
“Now I have it!” he cried; “now I have it! Why did I not see it at
once? These words have all been cut from a prayer-book. We will look, at
least, and then we shall be certain.”
He moistened one of the words pasted on the paper with his tongue, and,
when it was sufficiently softened, he detached it with a pin. On the
other side of this word was printed a Latin word, _Deus_.
“Ah, ha,” he said with a little laugh of satisfaction. “I knew it.
Father Taberet would be pleased to see this. But what has become of
the mutilated prayer-book? Can it have been burned? No, because a
heavy-bound book is not easily burned. It is thrown in some corner.”
M. Verduret was interrupted by the porter, who returned with the
messenger from the Rue Pigalle.
“Ah, here you are,” he said encouragingly. Then he showed the envelope
of the letter, and said:
“Do you remember bringing this letter here this morning?”
“Perfectly, monsieur. I took particular notice of the direction; we
don’t often see anything like it.”
“Who told you to bring it? a gentleman, or a lady?”
“Neither, monsieur; it was a porter.”
This reply made the porter laugh very much, but not a muscle of M.
Verduret’s face moved.
“A porter? Well, do you know this colleague of yours.”
“I never even saw him before.”
“How does he look?”
“He was neither tall nor short; he wore a green vest, and his medal.”
“Your description is so vague that it would suit every porter in the
city; but did your colleague tell you who sent the letter?”
“No, monsieur. He only put ten sous in my hand, and said, ‘Here, carry
this to No. 39, Rue Chaptal: a coachman on the boulevard handed it to
me.’ Ten sous! I warrant you he made more than that by it.”
This answer seemed to disconcert M. Verduret. So many precautions taken
in sending the letter disturbed him, and disarranged his plans.
“Do you think you would recognize the porter again?”
“Yes, monsieur, if I saw him.”
“How much do you gain a day as a porter?”
“I can’t tell exactly; but my corner is a good stand, and I am busy
doing errands nearly all day. I suppose I make from eight to ten
francs.”
“Very well; I will give you ten francs a day if you will walk about the
streets, and look for the porter who brought this letter. Every evening,
at eight o’clock, come to the Archangel, on the Quai Saint Michel, give
me a report of your search, and receive your pay. Ask for M. Verduret.
If you find the man I will give you fifty francs. Do you accept?”
“I rather think I will, monsieur.”
“Then don’t lose a minute. Start off!”
Although ignorant of M. Verduret’s plans, Prosper began to comprehend
the sense of his investigations. His fate depended upon their success,
and yet he almost forgot this fact in his admiration of this singular
man; for his energy, his bantering coolness when he wished to discover
anything, the surety of his deductions, the fertility of his expedients,
and the rapidity of his movements, were astonishing.
“Monsieur,” said Prosper when the porter had left the room, “do you
still think you see a woman’s hand in this affair?”
“More than ever; and a pious woman too, and a woman who has two
prayer-books, since she could cut up one to write to you.”
“And you hope to find the mutilated book?”
“I do, thanks to the opportunity I have of making an immediate search;
which I will set about at once.”
Saying this, he sat down, and rapidly scratched off a few lines on a
slip of paper, which he folded up, and put in his vest-pocket.
“Are you ready to go to M. Fauvel’s? Yes? Come on, then; we have
certainly earned our breakfast to-day.”