There was an adventurer in Holland named Rigaud, who used to drink and smoke with this brother. He was an oily villain, who had been in jail in France on suspicion of having murdered his wife. He had shaggy dry hair streaked with red, and a thick mustache, and when he smiled his eyes went close together, his mustache went up under his hooked nose, and his nose came down over his mustache. Rigaud saw the box, concluded it contained something valuable, and made up his mind to get it. His chance came when the brother of Flintwinch died suddenly one day, and he lost no time in making away with the iron box. By means of the letters it contained, he soon guessed the secret which Mrs. Clennam had been for so many years at such pains to conceal, and, deciding that by this knowledge he could squeeze money out of her, he came to London to find and threaten her. But she, believing she had burned the part of the will which Rigaud claimed to possess, refused to listen to him, until at last, maddened by her refusals, he searched out the Dorrits. He soon discovered that the man who had educated the singer (Arthur's real mother) was Frederick Dorrit, Little Dorrit's dead uncle, and that it was Little Dorrit herself, since she was his youngest niece, from whom the money was now being unjustly kept. Rigaud easily found Little Dorrit, for she was now in the Marshalsea nursing Arthur, where he lay sick, and to her the cunning adventurer sent a copy of the paper in a sealed packet, asking her, if it was not reclaimed before the prison closed that same night, to open and read it herself. He then went to the Clennam house, told Mrs. Clennam and Flintwinch what he had done and demanded money at once as the price of his reclaiming the packet before Little Dorrit should learn the secret it held. At this Flintwinch had to confess what he had done, and Mrs. Clennam knew that the fatal paper had not been burned, after all. The wretched woman, seeing this sharp end to all her scheming, was almost distracted. She had not walked a step for twelve years, but now her excitement and frenzy gave her unnatural strength. She rose from her invalid chair and ran with all her speed from the house. Old Affery, the servant, followed her mistress, wringing her hands as she tried vainly to overtake her. Mrs. Clennam did not pause till she had reached the prison and found Little Dorrit. She told her to open the packet at once and to read what it contained, and then, kneeling at her feet, she promised to restore to her all she had withheld, and begged her to forgive and to come back with her to tell Rigaud that she already knew the secret and that he might do his worst.