“But who are these people, monsieur?  Tell me, who dares send this money?”

“If I knew, my dear Prosper, my task would be at an end, for then I would know who committed the robbery.  But we will continue our searches.  I have finally procured evidence which will sooner or later become convincing proof.  I have heretofore only made deductions more or less probable; I now possess knowledge which proves that I was not mistaken.  I walked in darkness:  now I have a light to guide me.”

As Prosper listened to M. Verduret’s reassuring words, he felt hope arising in his breast.

“Now,” said M. Verduret, “we must take advantage of this evidence, gained by the imprudence of our enemies, without delay.  We will begin with the porter.”

He opened the door and called out: 

“I say, my good man, step here a moment.”

The porter entered, looking very much surprised at the authority exercised over his lodger by this stranger.

“Who gave you this letter?” said M. Verduret.

“A messenger, who said he was paid for bringing it.”

“Do you know him?”

“I know him well; he is the errand-runner who keeps his cart at the corner of the Rue Pigalle.”

“Go and bring him here.”

After the porter had gone, M. Verduret drew from his pocket his diary, and compared a page of it with the notes which he had spread over the table.

“These notes were not sent by the thief,” he said, after an attentive examination of them.

“Do you think so, monsieur?”

“I am certain of it; that is, unless the thief is endowed with extraordinary penetration and forethought.  One thing is certain:  these ten thousand francs are not part of the three hundred and fifty thousand which were stolen from the safe.”

“Yet,” said Prosper, who could not account for this certainty on the part of his protector, “yet——­”

“There is no doubt about it:  I have the numbers of all the stolen notes.”

“What!  When even I did not have them?”

“But the bank did, fortunately.  When we undertake an affair we must anticipate everything, and forget nothing.  It is a poor excuse for a man to say, ‘I did not think of it’ when he commits some oversight.  I thought of the bank.”

If, in the beginning, Prosper had felt some repugnance about confiding in his father’s friend, the feeling had now disappeared.

He understood that alone, scarcely master of himself, governed only by the inspirations of inexperience, never would he have the patient perspicacity of this singular man.

Verduret continued talking to himself, as if he had absolutely forgotten Prosper’s presence: 

“Then, as this package did not come from the thief, it can only come from the other person, who was near the safe at the time of the robbery, but could not prevent it, and now feels remorse.  The probability of two persons assisting at the robbery, a probability suggested by the scratch, is now converted into undeniable certainty. Ergo, I was right.”