CHAPTER XXVIII

CROCHARD WRITES AN EPILOGUE

For an instant, we gazed at the glittering heap with dazzled eyes; then Grady, with an inarticulate cry, sprang to his feet and picked up a handful of the diamonds, as though to convince himself of their reality.

“But I don’t understand!” he gasped.  “Have you got Croshar too?”

“No such luck,” said Godfrey.

“Do you mean to say he’d give these up without a fight!”

The same thought was in my own mind; if Godfrey had run down Crochard and got the diamonds, without a life-and-death struggle, that engaging rascal must be much less formidable than I had supposed.

“My dear Grady,” said Godfrey, “I haven’t seen Crochard since the minute you took him off the boat.  I’d have had him, if you had let Simmonds call me.  That’s what I had planned.  But he was too clever for us.  I knew that he would come to-day....”

“You knew that he would come to-day?” repeated Grady blankly.  “How did you know that—­or is it merely hot air?”

“I knew that he would come,” said Godfrey, curtly, “because he wrote and told me so.”

M. Pigot laughed a dry little laugh.

“That is a favourite device of his,” he said; “and he always keeps his word.”

“The trouble was,” continued Godfrey, “that I didn’t look for him so early in the day, and so he was able to send me on a wild-goose chase after a sensation that didn’t exist.  There’s where I was a fool.  But I discovered the secret drawer ten days ago—­while the cabinet was still at Vantine’s—­the evening after the veiled lady got her letters.  It was easy enough.  I am surprised you didn’t think of it, Lester.”

“Think of what?” I asked.

“Of the key to the mystery.  The drawer containing the letters was on the left side of the desk; I saw at once that there must be another drawer, opened in the same way, on the right side.”

“I didn’t see it,” I said.  “I don’t see it yet.”

“Think a minute.  Why was Drouet killed?  Because he opened the wrong drawer.  He pressed the combination at the right side of the desk, instead of that at the left side.  The fair Julie must have thought the drawer was on the right side, instead of the left.  It was a mistake very easy to make, since her mistress doubtless had her back turned when Julie saw her open the drawer.  The suspicion that it was Julie’s mistake becomes certainty when she shows the combination to Vantine, and he is killed, too.  Besides, the veiled lady herself made a remark which revealed the whole story.”

“I didn’t notice it,” I said, resignedly.  “What was it?”

“That she was accustomed to opening the drawer with her left hand, instead of with her right.  After that, there could be no further doubt.  So I discovered the drawer very simply.  It had to be there.”

“Yes,” I said; “and then?”