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Yes, to find it now. Near her heart. By the candle, she reads the cabalistic words: "Leroyne & Co., 16 Rue Vivienne." Was it an imprudence to speak of Hardin? No, it was a mere threat. Marie's cunning eyes twinkle. She will get this money here quietly. Then, to the bank to the bank! Two fortunes at one "coup." But she must see Jules! Jules Tessier! He must help now; he must help. And how?
She can trust him with the heiress until the property is settled on the married lovers. Hardin, when Jules Tessier's addled brains are restored by careful nursing, receives a document from Leroyne & Co., which rouses his inmost soul. Jules Tessier, handsome brute, chafes under the loss of the double blackmail. "Two hundred thousand francs," and his Marie.
Marie Berard's case is one of the reigning sensations. Her lips are now sealed in death. The baffled police only see in the visit to the "bal de minuit," a bourgeois intrigue of ordinary character. Jules dares not tell all. He fears the stern French law. Tossing on his bed of pain, his only course is to secretly visit Leroyne & Co.
And the cipher cablegram gives Hardin the disjointed facts of Marie's death! His one ally gone. Her lips sealed forever. Musing in his library, Hardin's clear head unravels this intrigue. The Paris police know not the past history of the actors in this drama. Jules is simply greedy and thick-headed. Leroyne & Co. are passionless bankers. But Hardin gathers up the knotted threads and unravels all.
Seated in a bosky arbor, the two talk in lowest tones over their chicken and Burgundy. There is a noisy party in the next arbor, but a pair of dark Italian eyes peer like basilisks through the leaves of the tawdry shade. The lovers are unconscious of the listener. With joint toil, the pair of lovers prepare a letter to Leroyne & Co., bankers, 16 Rue Vivienne.
The two weeks passed tossing on a hospital bed, have been lost to the police. Dimly Jules remembers the sudden assault. Crashing blows raining down upon him! Not a scrap of paper is left. The fatal letter to Leroyne & Co. is gone. The police question the artful Jules. He holds the secret of Leroyne & Co. to himself. He may yet get a handsome bribe to tell even the meagre facts he knows.
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