"Well, the document in question was in reality a small memorandum-book. Dargental, as you know, was an inveterate gambler, but he was also a very methodical man, and so whenever he won or lost any money or made a purchase--such as a lottery ticket, he made a note of the number in this book. He carried several lottery tickets about with him in the pocket-book which the murderer stole from him, and this was recorded in his memorandum-book. So Robergeot said to himself: 'If by any extraordinary chance one of the tickets enumerated in this list should win a prize, the murderer will perhaps be foolish enough to claim the money.' Well, this is exactly what has happened. Ticket No. 115,815, which headed Dargental's list, won a prize of a hundred thousand francs at the last drawing of the lottery of the Decorative Art Society; so Robergeot immediately despatched a commissary of police and two detectives to the lottery office with orders to arrest the holder of the ticket, if he ventured to present himself. He did present himself yesterday morning--and in the person of our friend Adhémar de Puymirol." "Puymirol!" exclaimed George, "it's impossible!" "This much, at least, is certain: Puymirol has been in prison for nearly two days now." "And you haven't told your friend, the magistrate, that Puymirol could not possibly be Dargental's murderer? You know we were breakfasting with him at the very time when the crime was committed." "Robergeot knows that, but the fact that the missing tickets were in Puymirol's possession can not be disputed. This attempt at fraud on his part surprises you, I see, as much as it does me," continued Balmer; "but I account for it by the fact that Puymirol was most desperately hard up. He owed ten thousand francs at the club, to my certain knowledge, and hadn't a penny to meet his obligations with. He must have lost his senses in consequence, besides, he couldn't know that the authorities had a list of Dargental's tickets, and that the police were lying in wait for him at the lottery office. As regards that matter I can almost excuse him, for, after all, he injured no one as Dargental was dead; and a man whose past life has always been blameless may be forgiven for a momentary weakness. Indeed, if this were the only charge against him, the matter could be hushed up, but there is the murder--" "But no one can really believe him guilty of that. An incontestable _alibi_ can be established." "Yes; but it is also necessary to prove that Puymirol had no knowledge of the murder. Now, everything seems to indicate that he was aware of it. If not, how did he come into possession of that pocket-book containing the tickets?"