“And the letters!  The trick of my letters to the late lamented Langernault!  That was my crowning triumph.  Oh, the joy of it, when I invented and constructed my little mechanical toy!  Wasn’t it nicely thought out?  Isn’t it wonderfully neat and accurate?  On the appointed day, click, the first letter!  And, ten days after, click, the second letter!  Come, there’s no hope for you, my poor friends, you’re nicely done for.  Dance!  Jump!  Skip!

“And what amuses me—­for I am laughing now—­is to think that nobody will know what to make of it.  Marie and Sauverand guilty:  of that there is not the least doubt.  But, outside that, absolute mystery.

“Nobody will know nor ever will know anything.  In a few weeks’ time, when the two criminals are irrevocably doomed, when the letters are in the hands of the police, on the 25th, or, rather, at 3 o’clock on the morning of the 26th of May, an explosion will destroy every trace of my work.  The bomb is in its place.  A movement entirely independent of the chandelier will explode it at the hour aforesaid.

“I have just laid beside it the drab-cloth manuscript book in which I pretended that I wrote my diary, the phials containing the poison, the needles which I used, an ebony walking-stick, two letters from Inspector Verot, in short, anything that might save the culprits.  Then how can any one know?  No, nobody will know nor ever will know anything.

“Unless—­unless some miracle happens—­unless the bomb leaves the walls standing and the ceiling intact.  Unless, by some marvel of intelligence and intuition, a man of genius, unravelling the threads which I have tangled, should penetrate to the very heart of the riddle and succeed, after a search lasting for months and months, in discovering this final letter.

“It is for this man that I write, well knowing that he cannot exist.  But, after all, what do I care?  Marie and Sauverand will be at the bottom of the abyss by then, dead no doubt, or in any case separated forever.  And I risk nothing by leaving this evidence of my hatred in the hands of chance.

“There, that’s finished.  I have only to sign.  My hand shakes more and more.  The sweat is pouring from my forehead in great drops.  I am suffering the tortures of the damned and I am divinely happy!  Aha, my friends, you were waiting for my death!

“You, Marie, imprudently let me read in your eyes, which watched me stealthily, all your delight at seeing me so ill!  And you were both of you so sure of the future that you had the courage to wait patiently for my death!  Well, here it is, my death!  Here it is and there are you, united above my grave, linked together with the handcuffs.  Marie, be the wife of my friend Sauverand.  Sauverand, I bestow my spouse upon you.  Be joined together in holy matrimony.  Bless you, my children!

“The examining magistrate will draw up the contract and the executioner will read the marriage service.  Oh, the delight of it!  I suffer agonies—­but oh, the delight!  What a fine thing is hatred, when it makes death a joy!  I am happy in dying.  Marie is in prison.  Sauverand is weeping in the condemned man’s cell.  The door opens....