About half way down the Rue Richelieu, M. Tabaret was seized with a sudden giddiness.

“I am going to have an attack, I fear,” thought he.  “If I die, Noel will escape, and will be my heir.  A man should always keep his will constantly with him, to be able to destroy it, if necessary.”

A few steps further on, he saw a doctor’s plate on a door; he stopped the cab, and rushed into the house.  He was so excited, so beside himself, his eyes had such a wild expression, that the doctor was almost afraid of his peculiar patient, who said to him hoarsely:  “Bleed me!”

The doctor ventured an objection; but already the old fellow had taken off his coat, and drawn up one of his shirtsleeves.

“Bleed me!” he repeated.  “Do you want me to die?”

The doctor finally obeyed, and old Tabaret came out quieted and relieved.

An hour later, armed with the necessary power, and accompanied by a policeman, he proceeded to the lost property office at the St. Lazare railway station, to make the necessary search.  It resulted as he had expected.  He learnt that, on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, there had been found in one of the second class carriages, of train No. 45, an overcoat and an umbrella.  He was shown the articles; and he at once recognised them as belonging to Noel.  In one of the pockets of the overcoat, he found a pair of lavender kid gloves, frayed and soiled, as well as a return ticket from Chatou, which had not been used.

In hurrying on, in pursuit of the truth, old Tabaret knew only too well, what it was.  His conviction, unwillingly formed when Clergeot had told him of Noel’s follies, had since been strengthened in a number of other ways.  When with Juliette, he had felt positively sure, and yet, at this last moment, when doubt had become impossible, he was, on beholding the evidence arrayed against Noel, absolutely thunderstruck.

“Onwards!” he cried at last.  “Now to arrest him.”

And, without losing an instant, he hastened to the Palais de Justice, where he hoped to find the investigating magistrate.  Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, M. Daburon was still in his office.  He was conversing with the Count de Commarin, having related to him the facts revealed by Pierre Lerouge whom the count had believed dead many years before.

Old Tabaret entered like a whirlwind, too distracted to notice the presence of a stranger.

“Sir,” he cried, stuttering with suppressed rage, “we have discovered the real assassin!  It is he, my adopted son, my heir, Noel!”

“Noel!” repeated M. Daburon, rising.  And then in a lower tone, he added, “I suspected it.”

“A warrant is necessary at once,” continued the old fellow.  “If we lose a minute, he will slip through our fingers.  He will know that he is discovered, if his mistress has time to warn him of my visit.  Hasten, sir, hasten!”

M. Daburon opened his lips to ask an explanation; but the old detective continued:  “That is not all.  An innocent man, Albert, is still in prison.”