LITMIR.BIZ

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others go their way, and I’ll go mine,” he said. “When, by dint of close watching and patient investigation I shall have collected proof sufficient to insure certain conviction, I will unmask the scoundrel.”

      He was radiant. He had at last found the crime, so long looked for, which would make him celebrated. Nothing was wanting, neither the odious circumstances, nor the mystery, nor even the romantic and sentimental element represented by Prosper and Madeleine.

      Success seemed difficult, almost impossible; but Fanferlot, the Squirrel, had great confidence in his own genius for investigation.

      Meanwhile, the search upstairs completed, M. Fauvel and the commissary returned to the room where Prosper was waiting for them.

      The commissary, who had seemed so calm when he first came, now looked grave and perplexed. The moment for taking a decisive part had come, yet it was evident that he hesitated.

      “You see, gentlemen,” he began, “our search has only confirmed our first suspicion.”

      M. Fauvel and Prosper bowed assentingly.

      “And what do you think, M. Fanferlot?” continued the commissary.

      Fanferlot did not answer.

      Occupied in studying the safe-lock, he manifested signs of a lively surprise. Evidently he had just made an important discovery.

      M. Fauvel, Prosper, and the commissary rose, and surrounded him.

      “Have you discovered any trace?” said the banker, eagerly.

      Fanferlot turned around with a vexed air. He reproached himself for not having concealed his impressions.

      “Oh!” said he, carelessly, “I have discovered nothing of importance.”

      “But we should like to know,” said Prosper.

      “I have merely convinced myself that this safe has been recently opened or shut, I know not which, with great violence and haste.”

      “Why so?” asked the commissary, becoming attentive.

      “Look, monsieur, at this scratch near the lock.”

      The commissary stooped down, and carefully examined the safe; he saw a light scratch several inches long that had removed the outer coat of varnish.

      “I see the scratch,” said he, “but what does that prove?”

      “Oh, nothing at all!” said Fanferlot. “I just now told you it was of no importance.”

      Fanferlot said this, but it was not his real opinion.

      This scratch, undeniably fresh, had for him a signification that escaped the others. He said to himself, “This confirms my suspicions. If the cashier had stolen millions, there was no occasion for his being in a hurry; whereas the banker, creeping down in the dead of night with cat-like footsteps, for fear of awakening the boy in the ante-room, in order to rifle his own money-safe, had every reason to tremble, to hurry, to hastily withdraw the key, which, slipping along the lock, scratched off the varnish.”

      Resolved to unravel by himself the tangled thread of this mystery, the detective determined to keep his conjectures to himself; for the same reason he was silent as to the interview which he had overheard between Madeleine and Prosper.

      He hastened to withdraw attention from the scratch upon the lock.

      “To conclude,” he said, addressing the commissary, “I am convinced that no one outside of the bank could have obtained access to this room. The safe, moreover, is intact. No suspicious pressure has been used on the movable buttons. I can assert that the lock has not been tampered with by burglar’s tools or false keys. Those who opened the safe knew the word, and possessed the key.”

      This formal affirmation of a man whom he knew to be skilful ended the hesitation of the commissary.

      “That being the case,” he replied, “I must request a few moments’ conversation with M. Fauvel.”

      “I am at your service,” said the banker.

      Prosper foresaw the result of this conversation. He quietly placed his hat on the table, to show that he had no intention of attempting to escape, and passed into the adjoining room.

      Fanferlot also went out, but not before the commissary had made him a sign, and received one in return.

      This sign signified, “You are responsible for this man.”

      The detective needed no admonition to make him keep a strict watch. His suspicions were too vague, his desire for success was too ardent, for him to lose sight of Prosper an instant.

      Closely following the cashier, he seated himself in a dark corner of the room, and, pretending to be sleepy, he fixed himself in a comfortable position for taking a nap, gaped until his jaw-bone seemed about to be dislocated, then closed his eyes, and kept perfectly quiet.

      Prosper took a seat at the desk of an absent clerk. The others were burning to know the result of the investigation; their eyes shone with curiosity, but they dared not ask a question.

      Unable to refrain himself any longer, little Cavaillon, Prosper’s defender, ventured to say:

      “Well, who stole the money?”

      Prosper shrugged his shoulders.

      “Nobody knows,” he replied.

      Was this conscious innocence or hardened recklessness? The clerks observed with bewildered surprise that Prosper had resumed his usual manner, that sort of icy haughtiness that kept people at a distance, and made him so unpopular in the bank.

      Save the death-like pallor of his face, and the dark circles around his swollen eyes, he bore no traces of the pitiable agitation he had exhibited a short time before.

      Never would a stranger entering the room have supposed that this young man idly lounging in a chair, and toying with a pencil, was resting under an accusation of robbery, and was about to be arrested.

      He soon stopped playing with the pencil, and drew toward him a sheet of paper upon which he hastily wrote a few lines.

      “Ah, ha!” thought Fanferlot the Squirrel, whose hearing and sight were wonderfully good in spite of his profound sleep, “eh! eh! he makes his little confidential communication on paper, I see; now we will discover something positive.”

      His note written, Prosper folded it carefully into the smallest possible size, and after furtively glancing toward the detective, who remained motionless in his corner, threw it across the desk to little Cavaillon with this one word:

      “Gypsy!”

      All this was so quickly and skilfully done that Fanferlot was confounded, and began to feel a little uneasy.

      “The devil take him!” said he to himself; “for a suffering innocent this young dandy has more pluck and nerve than many of my oldest customers. This, however, shows the result of education!”

      Yes: innocent or guilty, Prosper must have been endowed with great self-control and power of dissimulation to affect this presence of mind at a time when his honor, his future happiness, all that he held dear in life, were at stake. And he was only thirty years old.

      Either from natural deference, or from the hope of gaining some ray of light by a private conversation, the commissary determined to speak to the banker before acting decisively.

      “There is not a shadow of doubt, monsieur,” he said, as soon as they were alone, “this young man has robbed you. It would be a gross neglect of duty if I did not secure his person. The law will decide whether he shall be released, or sent to prison.”

      The declaration seemed to distress the banker.

      He sank into a chair, and murmured:

      “Poor Prosper!”

      Seeing the astonished look of his listener, he added:

      “Until

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