make a scandal! You cannot mean it. I have enemies, and I am proud of
it. I think I have deserved them. What I might complain about is that I
am wounded in the house of my friend, attacked with unheard-of violence,
by fervent loyalists, who, I grant you, are good Catholics, but
exceedingly bad Christians.... In a word, I am watched, spied upon,
shadowed, and you suggest, Monsieur Sariette, that I should make a
present of this comic-opera mystery, this burlesque adventure, this
story in which we both cut somewhat pitiable figures, to a set of
spiteful journalists? Do you wish to cover me with ridicule?"

The result of the colloquy was that the two gentlemen agreed to change
all the locks in the library. Estimates were asked for and workmen
called in. For six weeks the d'Esparvieu household rang from morning
till night with the sound of hammers, the hum of centre-bits, and the
grating of files. Fires were always going in the abode of the
philosophers and globes, and the people of the house were simply
sickened by the smell of heated oil. The old, smooth, easy-running locks
were replaced, on the cupboards and doors of the rooms, by stubborn and
tricky fastenings. There was nothing but combinations of locks,
letter-padlocks, safety-bolts, bars, chains, and electric alarm-bells.

All this display of ironmongery inspired fear. The lock-cases glistened,
and there was much grinding of bolts. To gain access to a room, a
cupboard, or a drawer, it was necessary to know a certain number, of
which Monsieur Sariette alone was cognisant. His head was filled with
bizarre words and tremendous numbers, and he got entangled among all
these cryptic signs, these square, cubic, and triangular figures. He
himself couldn't get the doors and the cupboards undone, yet every
morning he found them wide open, and the books thrown about, ransacked,
and hidden away. In the gutter of the Rue Servandoni a policeman picked
up a volume of Salomon Reinach on the identity of Barabbas and Jesus
Christ. As it bore the book-plate of the d'Esparvieu library he returned
it to the owner.

Monsieur Rene d'Esparvieu, not even deigning to inform Monsieur Sariette
of the fact, made up his mind to consult a magistrate, a friend in whom
he had complete confidence, to wit, a certain Monsieur des Aubels,
Counsel at the Law Courts, who had put through many an important affair.
He was a little plump man, very red, very bald, with a cranium that
shone like a billiard b