“The manor looked as though it had been deserted the last twenty years.  The gate, wide-open and rotten, held, one wondered how.  Grass filled the paths; you could not tell the flower-beds from the lawn.

“At the noise I made kicking a shutter, an old man came out from a side-door and was apparently amazed to see me there.  I dismounted from my horse and gave him the letter.  He read it once or twice, turned it over, looked at me with suspicion, and asked: 

“‘Well, what do you want?’

“I answered sharply: 

“’You must know it as you have read your master’s orders.  I want to get in the house.’

“He appeared overwhelmed.  He said: 

“‘So—­you are going in—­in his room?’

“I was getting impatient.

“‘Parbleu! Do you intend to question me, by chance?’

“He stammered: 

“’No—­monsieur—­only—­it has not been opened since—­since the death.  If you will wait five minutes, I will go in to see whether——­’

“I interrupted angrily: 

“’See here, are you joking?  You can’t go in that room, as I have the key!’

“He no longer knew what to say.

“‘Then, monsieur, I will show you the way.’

“’Show me the stairs and leave me alone.  I can find it without your help.’

“‘But—­still—­monsieur——­’

“Then I lost my temper.

“‘Now be quiet!  Else you’ll be sorry!’

“I roughly pushed him aside and went into the house.

“I first went through the kitchen, then crossed two small rooms occupied by the man and his wife.  From there I stepped into a large hall.  I went up the stairs, and I recognized the door my friend had described to me.

“I opened it with ease and went in.

“The room was so dark that at first I could not distinguish anything.  I paused, arrested by that moldy and stale odor peculiar to deserted and condemned rooms, of dead rooms.  Then gradually my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and I saw rather clearly a great room in disorder, a bed without sheets having still its mattresses and pillows, one of which bore the deep print of an elbow or a head, as if someone had just been resting on it.

“The chairs seemed all in confusion.  I noticed that a door, probably that of a closet, had remained ajar.

“I first went to the window and opened it to get some light, but the hinges of the outside shutters were so rusted that I could not loosen them.

“I even tried to break them with my sword, but did not succeed.  As those fruitless attempts irritated me, and as my eyes were by now adjusted to the dim light, I gave up hope of getting more light and went toward the writing-desk.

“I sat down in an arm-chair, folded back the top, and opened the drawer.  It was full to the edge.  I needed but three packages, which I knew how to distinguish, and I started looking for them.