of us is at times apt to make a mistake. You made two, and I
profited by them. Firstly, after my sister and I left you this
afternoon, you never made the slightest pretence of making inquiries
or collecting information about the mysterious theft of the document.
I kept an eye on you throughout the evening. You left your office and
strolled for a while on the quays; you had an excellent dinner at the
Restaurant des Anglais; then you settled down to your coffee and
liqueur. Well, my good M. Ratichon, obviously you would have been more
active in the matter if you had not known exactly where and when and
how to lay your hands upon the document, for the recovery of which my
sister had offered you ten thousand francs."

I groaned. I had not been quite so circumspect as I ought to have
been, but who would have thought--

"I have had something to do with police work in my day," continued M.
Geoffroy blandly, "though not of late years; but my knowledge of their
methods is not altogether rusty and my powers of observation are not
yet dulled. During my sister's visit to you this afternoon I noticed
the blouse and cap of a commissionnaire lying in a bundle in a corner
of your room. Now, though M. de Marsan has been in a burning fever
since he discovered his loss, he kept just sufficient presence of mind
at the moment to say nothing about that loss to any of the
Chancellerie officials, but to go straight home to his apartments in
the Rue Royale and to send for my sister and for me. When we came to
him he was already partly delirious, but he pointed to a parcel and a
letter which he had brought away from his office. The parcel proved to
be an empty box and the letter a blank sheet of paper; but the most
casual inquiry of the concierge at the Chancellerie elicited the fact
that a commissionaire had brought these things in the course of the
morning. That was your second mistake, my good M. Ratichon; not a very
grave one, perhaps, but I have been in the police, and somehow, the
moment I caught sight of that blouse and cap in your office, I could
not help connecting it with the commissionnaire who had brought a
bogus parcel and letter to my future brother-in-law a few minutes
before that mysterious and unexplained altercation took place in the
corridor."

Again I groaned. I felt as a child in the hands of that horrid
creature who seemed to be dissecting all the thoughts which had run
riot through my mind these past twenty hours.

"