“Enclosed herein is the plan of the house and garden. The turret is situated at the top of the staircase and is in a tumble-down condition. Two persons are necessary for the expedition, one to keep watch, for you have to look out for the laundress, who often comes by another garden door fastened by a padlock of which she has the key. “Fix the date (a note in blue pencil on the margin fixes it as the 28th of April) and let me know that we may meet at the same hotel. G. “P.S. My information with regard to the great enigma of which I spoke to you is still uncommonly vague. Is it a matter of a considerable treasure, or of a scientific secret? I do not yet know. The journey for which I am getting ready will therefore settle the matter. How useful your help will be then!” For the time being Ralph paid little attention to this somewhat strange postscript. He saw in it, according to a phrase he affected, one of those jungles into which one can only penetrate by means of dangerous suppositions. But the burgling of Villa B.—— This burglary little by little excited his keen interest. He considered it at length. A kickshaw perhaps; but there are kickshaws as nourishing as a substantial dish. And since he was rolling towards the South, it would be rather foolish to neglect such a good opportunity. That night he slipped out of his truck at the railway station at Marseilles and took an ordinary train to Nice, where he arrived on the morning of Wednesday the 28th of April, after having relieved a good gentleman of some bank notes, which permitted him to buy a suit-case, clothes, and linen, and to establish himself in one of the best hotels on the front. There he breakfasted, and over his breakfast he read in the local papers more or less fantastic accounts of the murders in the express. At two o’clock in the afternoon he left the hotel, so changed in dress and countenance that it would have been almost impossible for Marescal to recognize him. But how should Marescal suspect that the man who had tricked him would have the audacity to substitute himself for Miss Bakersfield in the burglary at the Villa? “When a fruit is ripe, one gathers it,” Ralph said to himself. “And this one seems to me quite ripe and I should certainly be too stupid for anything if I let it rot. And I’m sure that that unfortunate Miss Bakersfield would never forgive me if I did so.”