d,
suddenly, startled by a disconcerting vision, dazzled by the quick light
that breaks in upon me and laughing, oh, but laughing fit to break my
jaws, with my thumb--do you understand? with my thumb--hop, I force out
the left eye!"

M. Nicole was really laughing, as he said, fit to break his jaws. And he
was no longer the timid little unctuous and obsequious provincial usher,
but a well-set-up fellow, who, after reciting and mimicking the whole
scene with impressive ardour, was now laughing with a shrill laughter
the sound of which made Prasville's flesh creep:

"Hop! Jump, Marquis! Out of your kennel, Towzer! What's the use of two
eyes? It's one more than you want. Hop! I say, Clarisse, look at it
rolling over the carpet! Mind Daubrecq's eye! Be careful with the
grate!"

M. Nicole, who had risen and pretended to be hunting after something
across the room, now sat down again, took from his pocket a thing shaped
like a marble, rolled it in the hollow of his hand, chucked it in the
air, like a ball, put it back in his fob and said, coolly:

"Daubrecq's left eye."

Prasville was utterly bewildered. What was his strange visitor driving
at? What did all this story mean? Pale with excitement, he said:

"Explain yourself."

"But it's all explained, it seems to me. And it fits in so well with
things as they were, fits in with all the conjectures which I had been
making in spite of myself and which would inevitably have led to my
solving the mystery, if that damned Daubrecq had not so cleverly sent me
astray! Yes, think, follow the trend of my suppositions: 'As the list is
not to be discovered away from Daubrecq,' I said to myself, 'it cannot
exist away from Daubrecq. And, as it is not to be discovered in the
clothes he wears, it must be hidden deeper still, in himself, to speak
plainly, in his flesh, under his skin..."

"In his eye, perhaps?" suggested Prasville, by way of a joke...

"In his eye? Monsieur le secretaire-general, you have said the word."

"What?"

"I repeat, in his eye. And it is a truth that ought to have occurred to
my mind logically, instead of being revealed to me by accident. And I
will tell you why. Daubrecq knew that Clarisse had seen a letter from
him instructing an English manufacturer to 'empty the crystal within,
so as to leave a void which it was unpossible to suspect.' Daubrecq was
bound, in prudence, to divert any attempt at search. And it was for this
reason that he had a crystal sto