“Absolutely.  I think there can be no doubt of it.”

“There are objections—­and rather weighty ones.  The theory explains the two deaths, it explains the similarity of the wounds, it explains how both should be on the right hand just above the knuckles, it explains why both bodies were found in the same place since both men started to summon help.  But, in the first place, if the Frenchman got the drawer open, who closed it?”

“Perhaps it closed itself when he let go of it.”

“And closed again after Vantine opened it?”

“Yes.”

“It would take a very clever mechanism to do that.”

“But at least it’s possible.”

“Oh, yes; it’s possible.  And we must remember that the poisoners of those days were very ingenious.  That was the heydey of La Voisin and the Marquise de Brinvilliers, of Elixi, and heaven knows how many other experts who had followed Catherine de Medici to France.  So that’s all quite possible.  But there is one thing that isn’t possible, and that is that a poison which, if it is administered as we think it is, must be a liquid, could remain in that cabinet fresh and ready for use for more than three hundred years.  It would have dried up centuries ago.  Nor would the mechanism stay in order so long.  It must be both complicated and delicate.  Therefore it would have to be oiled and overhauled from time to time.  If it is worked by a spring—­and I don’t see how else it can be worked—­the spring would have to be renewed and wound up.”

“Well?” I asked, as he paused.

“Well, it is evident that the drawer contains something more recent than the love letters of Louis Fourteenth.  It must have been put in working order quite recently.  But by whom and for what purpose?  That is the mystery we have to solve—­and it is a mighty pretty one.  And here’s another objection,” he added.  “That Frenchman knew about the secret drawer, because, according to our theory, he opened it and got killed.  Why didn’t he also know about the poison?”

That was an objection, truly, and the more I thought of it, the more serious it seemed.

“It may be,” said Godfrey, at last, “that d’Aurelle was going it alone—­that he had broken with the gang—­”

“The gang?”

“Of course there is a gang.  This thing has taken careful planning and concerted effort.  And the leader of the gang is a genius!  I wonder if you understand how great a genius?  Think:  he knows the secret of the drawer of Madame de Montespan’s cabinet; but above all he knows the secret of the poison—­the poison of the Medici!  Do you know what that means, Lester?”

“What does it mean?” I asked, for Godfrey was getting ahead of me.

“It means he is a great criminal—­a really great criminal—­one of the elect from whom crime has no secrets.  Observe.  He alone knows the secret of the poison; one of his men breaks away from him, and pays for his mutiny with his life.  He is the brain; the others are merely the instruments!”