I took the document to the small ray of light, and on looking it over my hair seemed to stand on end with horror. _There I could recognize my own handwriting_, and I give you this precious and mysterious document clearly translated: “Dead and buried all his treasures after the Treachery of April 1st. Go, take a look in the barroom! Look at the furnace! Look at the weathercock! Dig a while and you shall be rich!” CHAPTER III _A Search and a Discovery_ |M. ADOLPHE LECAMUS and Marceline thought M. Théophraste’s actions strange, but they were too much occupied with an affair of their own to attach very great importance to them. However, M. Théophraste concealed his anxiety and pretended that the visit to the Conciergerie was quite a natural occurrence. He had gone down in the cellars just to satisfy a natural curiosity, not being one of those who make a superficial inspection of things of interest. The following day, M. Théophraste, under the pretext of putting his affairs in order, shut himself up in his office and gave instructions for nobody to disturb him. Leaning over the balcony he looked out upon the little square of Anvers and reflected over the happenings of yesterday. There was nothing in the view to distract him. He was accustomed to the scene below: nurses pushing perambulators gossiping over the latest news, and a few professors walking towards the Rollie College. The Avenue Touraine rang with the shouts of college students who had come before the lecture hour. Nothing had changed; the world was just the same. To-day, like yesterday, or like the day before yesterday. The people were going to their business just the same. Even Nidine Petito, the wife of the Italian professor, who lived in the apartment below, was the same. She began to play the “Carnival of Venice” on the piano just as she did every day. Nothing had changed; thus he reflected. On turning round he could see amongst his papers on the desk, the document. Did it really exist? He had passed a restless night and was now attributing his strange adventure to a bad dream—but no, it could not be that, for there was the paper on his desk, in his own handwriting, and written in blood. Good God! perhaps it was his own blood. What thoughts, what thoughts! Théophraste passed his hand over his forehead. He was perspiring and restless. Suddenly breathing a sigh and slapping his thigh with his hand, he appeared to have come to a definite resolution, and put the paper carefully away in his portfolio. He remembered that Signor Petito, the Italian professor, was an expert in handwriting and that he had had experience in engraving. He would take the document to him and ask his opinion. His friend Adolphe was also interested in graphology, but only in a spiritual way, and so he would not confide in him. There was already too much mystery in the affair without mixing it up with spiritualism and mediums.