There was no doubt possible after such complete explanations.  The commissary had seen correctly, and he proved it.

It was not of a vulgar accident that Mlle. Lucienne had just been the victim, but of a crime laboriously conceived, and executed with unheard-of audacity,—­of one of those crimes such as too many are committed, whose combinations, nine times out of ten, set aside even a suspicion, and foil all the efforts of human justice.

M. de Tregars knew now what had taken place, as clearly as if he had himself received the confession of the guilty parties.

A man had been found to execute that perilous programme,—­to make the horses run away, and then to run into some heavy wagon.  The wretch was staking his life on that game; it being evident that the light carriage must be smashed in a thousand pieces.  But he must have relied upon his skill and his presence of mind, to avoid the shock, to jump off safe and sound; whilst Mlle. Lucienne, thrown upon the pavement, would probably be killed on the spot.  The event had deceived his expectations, and he had been the victim of his rascality; but his death was a misfortune.

“Because now,” resumed the commissary, “the thread is broken in our hands which would infallibly have led us to the truth.  Who is it that ordered the crime, and paid for it?  We know it, since we know who benefits by the crime.  But that is not sufficient.  Justice requires something more than moral proofs.  Living, this bandit would have spoken.  His death insures the impunity of the wretches of whom he was but the instrument.”

“Perhaps,” said M. Tregars.

And at the same time he took out of his pocket, and showed the note found in Vincent Favoral’s pocket-book,—­that note, so obscure the day before, now so terribly clear.

“I cannot understand your negligence.  You should get through with that Van Klopen affair:  there is the danger.”

The commissary of police cast but a glance upon it, and, replying to the objections of his old experience rather more than addressing himself to M. de Tregars,

“There can be no doubt about it,” he murmured.  “It is to the crime committed to-day that these pressing recommendations relate; and, directed as they are to Vincent Favoral, they attest his complicity.  It was he who had charge of finishing the Van Klopen affair; in other words, to get rid of Lucienne.  It was he, I’d wager my head, who had treated with the false coachman.”

He remained for over a minute absorbed in his own thoughts, then,

“But who is the author of these recommendations to Vincent Favoral?  Do you know that, M. le Marquis?” he said.

They looked at each other; and the same name rose to their lips,

“The Baroness de Thaller!”

This name, however, they did not utter.

The commissary had placed himself under the gasburner which gave light to the Fortin’s office; and, adjusting his glasses, he was scrutinizing the note with the most minute attention, studying the grain and the transparency of the paper, the ink, and the handwriting.  And at last,