“You have come at last,” exclaimed Andre, rushing up to the gentleman who alighted from it.  “I was getting quite anxious.”

“I am about five minutes late,” returned Lecoq; “but I was detained,” and then, as Andre began to pour out his thanks, he added, “Get into the carriage; I have a great deal to say to you.”

Andre obeyed, and as he did so, he detected something strange in the expression of his companion’s face.

“What!” remarked Lecoq, “do you see by my face that I have something to tell you?  You are getting quite a keen observer.  Well, I have, indeed, for I have passed the night going through Mascarin’s papers, and I have just gone through a painful scene—­I may say, one of the most painful that I have ever witnessed.  The intellect of Mascarin,” said he, “has given way under the tremendous pressure put upon it.  The ruling passion of the villain’s life was his love for his daughter.  He imagines that Flavia and Paul are without a franc and in want of bread; he thinks that he continually hears his daughter crying to him for help.  Then, on his knees, he entreats the warder to let him out, if only for a day, swearing that he will return as soon as he has succored his child.  Then, when his prayer is refused, he bursts into a frenzied rage and tears at his door, howling like an infuriated animal; and this state may last to the end of his life, and every minute in it be a space of intolerable torture.  Doctor Hortebise is dead; but the poison upon which he relied betrayed him, and he suffered agonies for twenty-four hours.  Catenac will fight to the bitter end, but the proofs are against him, and he will be convicted of infanticide.  In Rigal’s papers I have found evidence against Perpignan, Verminet and Van Klopen, who will all certainly hear something about penal servitude.  Nothing has been settled yet about Toto Chupin, for it must be remembered that he came and gave himself up.”

“And what about Croisenois?”

“His Company will be treated like any other attempt to extort money by swindling, and the Marquis will be sent to prison for two months, and the money paid for shares returned to the dupes, and that, I think, is all that I have to tell you, except that by to-morrow M. Gandelu will receive back the bills to which his son affixed a forged signature.  And now,” continued Lecoq, after a short pause, “the time has come for me to tell you why, at our first interview, I saluted you as the heir of the Duke de Champdoce.  I had guessed your history, but it was only last night I heard all the details.”

Then the detective gave a brief but concise account of the manuscript that Paul had read aloud.  He did not tell much, however, but passed lightly over the acts of the Duke de Champdoce and Madame de Mussidan, for he did not wish Andre to cease to respect either his father or the mother of Sabine.  The story was just concluded as the carriage drew up at the corner of the Rue de Matignon.