“Carry out this lady with care,” he commanded to the two valets; “and leave her in the next room. Try to bring her to, but mind, no roughness. Go!”
Left alone, Sartines examined the box like a man who could value fully the discovery. He tried the keys until convinced that the lock was only a sham. Thereupon with a cold chisel he cut it off bodily. Instead of the fulminating powder or the poison which he perhaps expected, to deprive France of her most important magistrate, a packet of papers bounded up.
The first words which started up before his eyes were the following, traced in a disguised hand:
“It is time for the Grand Master to drop the name of Baron Balsamo.”
There was no signature other than the three letters “L. P. D.”
“Aha,” said the head of police, “though I do not know this writing I believe I know this name. Balsamo—let us look among the B’s.”
Opening one of the twenty-four drawers of the famous desk, he took out a little register on which was written in fine writing three or four hundred names, preceded, accompanied or followed by flourishes of the pen.
“Whew! we have a lot about this busy B,” he muttered.
He read several pages with non-equivocal tokens of discontent.
He replaced the register in the drawer to go on with inventorying the contents of the packet. He did not go far without being deeply impressed. Soon he came to a note full of names with the text in cipher. This appeared important to him; the edges were worn with fingering and pencil marks were made on the margin.