ington inheritance and the tragedy of the Boulevard Suchet, all that
could throw light upon the plot hatched against Marie Fauville, all that
could explain the undoing of Sauverand and Florence--all this lay in
Sauverand's story. Don Luis had only to understand, and the truth would
appear like the moral which we draw from some obscure fable.

Don Luis did not once deviate from his method. If any objection suggested
itself to his mind, he at once replied:

"Very well. It may be that I am wrong and that Sauverand's story will not
enlighten me on any point capable of guiding me. It may be that the truth
lies outside it. But am I in a position to get at the truth in any other
way? All that I possess as an instrument of research, without attaching
undue importance to certain gleams of light which the regular appearance
of the mysterious letters has shed upon the case, all that I possess is
Gaston Sauverand's story. Must I not make use of it?"

And, once again, as when one follows a path by another person's tracks,
be began to live through the adventure which Sauverand had been through.
He compared it with the picture of it which he had imagined until then.
The two were in opposition; but could not the very clash of their
opposition be made to produce a spark of light?

"Here is what he said," he thought, "and there is what I believed. What
does the difference mean? Here is the thing that was, and there is the
thing that appeared to be. Why did the criminal wish the thing that was
to appear under that particular aspect? To remove all suspicion from him?
But, in that case, was it necessary that suspicion should fall precisely
on those on whom it did?"

The questions came crowding one upon the other. He sometimes answered
them at random, mentioning names and uttering words in succession, as
though the name mentioned might be just that of the criminal, and the
words uttered those which contained the unseen reality.

Then at once he would take up the story again, as schoolboys do when
parsing and analyzing a passage, in which each expression is
carefully sifted, each period discussed, each sentence reduced to its
essential value.

* * * * *

Hours and hours passed. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he gave a
start. He took out his watch. By the light of his electric lamp he saw
that it was seventeen minutes to twelve.

"So at seventeen minutes to twelve at night," he said, "I fathomed