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"Do you remember what M. Bertomy did when you handed him the notes? Now, do not be in a hurry; think before you answer." "Let me see: first he counted the notes, and made them into four packages; then he put them in the safe; and then it seems to me and then he locked the safe; and, yes, I am not mistaken, he went out!"
The count poisoned his brother, and then, finding that Madeline refused to give up Bertomy, determined to accomplish the cashier's ruin, and at the same time obtain an amount of money large enough to buy off his fellow-conspirator Lagors. Lagors, having learnt by chance the password that guarded the safe, was sent to Madame Fauvel late at night with a request for money.
He had no sooner turned the corner of the street, than Fanferlot entered No. 39, gave his name to the porter as Prosper Bertomy, went upstairs, and knocked at the first door he came to. It was opened by a youthful footman, dressed in the most fanciful livery. "Is Mme. Gypsy at home?"
He dashed himself against the prison-walls like a wild beast in a cage. Prosper Bertomy was not the man he appeared to be. This haughty, correct gentleman had ardent passions and a fiery temperament. One day, when he was about twenty-four years of age, he had become suddenly fired by ambition.
"Aha," said he, gayly, "I told her, at any rate." At the same hour that Mme. Nina Gypsy was seeking refuge at the Archangel, so highly recommended by Fanferlot the Squirrel, Prosper Bertomy was being entered on the jailer's book at the police office. Since the moment when he had resumed his habitual composure, he had not faltered.
"Raoul is false." "That is only too true: but how did he find out the word, if M. Bertomy did not reveal it? And who left the money in the safe but M. Bertomy?" These arguments had no effect upon Madeleine. "And now tell me," she said scornfully, "what became of the money?"
While Sigault was writing down these answers, M. Patrigent was racking his brain to imagine what could have occurred between M. Bertomy and his son, to cause this transformation in Prosper. "One more thing," said the judge: "how did you spend the evening, the night before the crime?"
"That was a year ago; you then loved Mlle. Madeleine; at least you wrote to me that you " "Father, I love her now, more than ever; I have never ceased to love her." M. Bertomy made a gesture of contemptuous pity. "Indeed!" he cried, "and the thought of the pure, innocent girl whom you loved did not prevent your entering upon a path of sin.
I am the confidant of his last wishes." Though the solution of the problem seemed so tantalisingly near, there were still some threads in the tangle which required sorting out before Lecoq could say that the case was complete. Among other matters he inquired of Bertomy the word which had been used to lock the safe on, the night of the robbery. The word had been "gipsy."
All that the angry marquis said was horribly true; yet Mme. Fauvel listened unflinchingly, as if the coarse cruelty of his words strengthened her resolution to have nothing more to do with him, but to throw herself on her husband's mercy. "Upon my soul," he went on, "you must be very much infatuated with this M. Bertomy!
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