"The press will do nothing of the kind. We have the censorship." "But, if some fact or, rather, a fresh crime . . . ?" "Why should there be a fresh crime? The matter is finished, at least on its active and dramatic side. The chief actors are dead. The curtain falls on the murder of Essarès Bey. As for the supernumeraries, Bournef and the others, we shall have them stowed away in an internment-camp before a week is past. We therefore find ourselves in the presence of a certain number of millions, with no owner, with no one who dares to claim them, on which France is entitled to lay hands. I shall devote my activity to securing the money for the republic." Patrice Belval shook his head: "Mme. Essarès remains, sir. We must not forget her husband's threats." "He is dead." "No matter, the threats are there. Old Siméon tells you so in a striking fashion." "He's half mad." "Exactly, his brain retains the impression of great and imminent danger. No, the struggle is not ended. Perhaps indeed it is only beginning." "Well, captain, are we not here? Make it your business to protect and defend Mme. Essarès by all the means in your power and by all those which I place at your disposal. Our collaboration will be uninterrupted, because my task lies here and because, if the battle--which you expect and I do not--takes place, it will be within the walls of this house and garden." "What makes you think that?" "Some words which Mme. Essarès overheard last night. The colonel repeated several times, 'The gold is here, Essarès.' He added, 'For years past, your car brought to this house all that there was at your bank in the Rue Lafayette. Siméon, you and the chauffeur used to let the sacks down the last grating on the left. How you used to send it away I do not know. But of what was here on the day when the war broke out, of the seventeen or eighteen hundred bags which they were expecting out yonder, none has left your place. I suspected the trick; and we kept watch night and day. The gold is here.'" "And have you no clue?" "Not one. Or this at most; but I attach comparatively little value to it." He took a crumpled paper from his pocket, unfolded it and continued: "Besides the pendant, Essarès Bey held in his hand this bit of blotted paper, on which you can see a few straggling, hurriedly-written words. The only ones that are more or less legible are these: 'golden triangle.' What this golden triangle means, what it has to do with the case in hand, I can't for the present tell. The most that I am able to presume is that, like the pendant, the scrap of paper was snatched by Essarès Bey from the man who died at nineteen minutes past seven this morning and that, when he himself was killed at twenty-three minutes past twelve, he was occupied in examining it." "And then there is the album," said Patrice, making his last point. "You see how all the details are linked together. You may safely believe that it is all one case."