, you
might be able to find something, an indication, some detail, in my
room? I have not touched anything._

_I shall stay indoors all to-morrow in the hope of seeing you; do
come if you possibly can. It seems to me that I am forsaken by
everyone, and I trust only you...."_

Jerome Fandor read and reread this letter, which had been written with a
trembling hand.

"Poor little soul!" he murmured. "Here is something more to add to her
troubles! It is really terrible! It seems to me as if we should never
come to the end of it; and I ask myself, whether the police will ever
find the key to all these mysteries!...

"Did someone really break into Elizabeth Dollon's room to steal this
paper? It is rather improbable. Judging from what she told me, there is
nothing compromising in it. But then, why this search?... She is right
so far: if the intruders had been merely thieves, they would have
carried off her jewellery!... Then it is for that paper they came?
Besides, ordinary burglars would have had considerable difficulty in
getting into her room, where she is remarkably well guarded, by the very
fact of there being other boarders in the house....

"No, the very audacity of this attempted theft seems to prove, that it
is connected with the other affairs which have brought the name of
Jacques Dollon into such prominence!

"I see in this the same extraordinary audacity, the same certainty of
escape, the same long and careful preparation, for it is a by no means
convenient place for a burglary in open day: comings and goings are
perpetual, and the guilty persons ran a hundred risks of being
caught...."

Fandor interrupted his reflections to read Elizabeth's letter once more.

"She is dying of fright! That is evident!... In any case she calls to me
for help. Her letter was posted yesterday evening.... I will go and see
her--and at once.... Who knows but I might find some clue which would
put me on the right track?"

* * * * *

Jerome Fandor did not feel very hopeful.

After having gone carefully over every point connected with, and
pertaining to, the affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, he had almost come
to the conclusion, optimistic as he was regarding the police, that
chance alone would bring about the arrest of the guilty parties.

"To lay these criminals by the heels," he had frankly declared,
"requires the aid of very favourable circumstances, and without th