Under the influence of an indifference most praiseworthy, in these unfortunate circumstances, the official doctor asked no questions, examined nothing. I told him how my late uncle had died of syncope. He had heard about his heart-disease, and this official doctor gave me the Burial Certificate. “Dr. Lerne is dead,” said he, “and our mission to-day will stop at that, if you please. For the rest, it is not our business to set investigations on foot which might bring us to contradict so eminent a master, and make him die otherwise than he desired.” The funeral took place at Grey-l’Abbaye, without any pomp or spectators, after which I employed ten days in unraveling the affairs of this inconceivable duality; this unparalleled amalgam of assassin and victim: Klotz-Lerne. During the course of his “phenomenal” existence, that is to say the last four and a half years or so, he had made no testamentary dispositions. This was to me the proof that in spite of his forebodings of his end, death had overtaken him unexpectedly, for no doubt had it been otherwise, he would have done everything to disinherit me. I found in his desk, at the bottom of the secret drawer, my uncle’s Will, as the letter of long ago had told me I should. It appointed me his residuary legatee. But Klotz-Lerne had charged the estate with a super-abundance of mortgages, and contracted numberless debts. My first thought was to appeal to the Courts, and then the absurdity of the case struck me, and I perceived all the confusion, which such a substitution of persons could cause to legal minds--those frauds of a kind not provided against by the Code, those false pretenses and all this legacy-hunting, which were a defiance of nature and law alike. I had to resign myself to all the consequences of an astounding imposture, and not say a word about it, for fear of arousing the worst suspicions. Everything considered, however, the acceptance of the succession still brought me some profit, and whatever happened, I was resolved to get rid of Fonval, judging that it would, henceforward, be for me but a nest of evil memories. I went through all the papers. Those of the real Lerne, confirmed his medical honor, and the legitimacy of his researches in grafting in every line. Those of Klotz-Lerne, usually recognizable by the illustrations in the manuscript, and often blackened with German Gothic characters, were carefully examined, and were reduced to ashes, for they were irrefutable witnesses of several crimes, and contained nothing to refute the presumption that a certain Nicolas Vermont, who had been present at Fonval for six months, had been a partner in them. Under the influence of this same dread, I ransacked the park and outhouses. That done, I presented the animals to the villagers, and dismissed Barbe.