“You always finish by understanding, Sainclair! I hope that you have forgiven me for that fault which gave you such a charming hour with Mme. Edith!” “Apropos of Mme. Edith, why did you take such a mischievous pleasure in putting me into such a fit of anger?” I demanded. “In order to have the right to abuse you and to forbid you to speak henceforward, one word to me _or to M. Darzac_! I repeat to you that, after your adventure of the night before, it would not have done to let you talk to M. Darzac. Try to understand the position, Sainclair!” “I’ll try, my friend!” “Much obliged!” “And still there is one thing that I don’t understand!” I exclaimed. “The death of Pere Bernier. Who killed Bernier?” “It was the cane!” said Rouletabille, gloomily. “It was that damned cane!” “I thought that it was ‘the oldest dagger known to humanity.’” “It was both of them; the cane and the flint. But it was the cane which decided his death; the stone was only his executioner.” I stared at Rouletabille, asking myself whether, this time, I had not come to the end of his intelligence. “You never understood, Sainclair--among other things--why upon the morrow of the day on which I had come to comprehend everything, I had let fall Arthur Rance’s ivory-headed cane in front of M. and Mme. Darzac. It was because I hoped that M. Darzac would pick it up. You remember, Sainclair, the ivory-headed cane which Larsan used to carry and the gestures he was in the habit of making with it while we were at the Glandier? He had a fashion of holding his cane which was all his own. I wanted to see whether Darzac would hold an ivory-headed cane as Larsan had used to do. And this fixed idea pursued me until the morrow, even after my visit to the insane asylum. Even after I had seen and felt the true Darzac, I longed to see the imposter make the gestures of Larsan. Ah, to see him suddenly brandish his cane like a bandit--forget the disguise of his figure for one single moment! throw back his falsely stooped shoulders. ‘Knock it, please! Knock at the shield of the Mortolas with heavy blows of the cane, dear, dear M. Darzac!’ And he knocked it--and I saw his form--erect--undisguised! And another man saw it and he is dead! It was poor Bernier, who was so horrified at the sight that he stumbled and fell so unfortunately on the ‘oldest dagger’ that the wound killed him. He is dead because he picked up the flint which, doubtless, had fallen out of Old Bob’s overcoat and which Bernier had intended to take to the workshop of the Professor in the Round Tower! He is dead, because at the same moment that he picked up the flint he saw Larsan brandishing his cane--saw the scoundrel’s figure and his gestures! All battles, Sainclair, have their innocent victims!”