"Bring me the candle I asked for," said he; "that test will set my doubts at rest."
The candle was brought. The duke held the commission close to the flame, and the heat caused a double cross, drawn below the signature with invisible ink, to appear upon the paper.
At the sight the duke's brow cleared, and he cried:
"Madame, this commission is signed by me, it is true; but it was not signed for Monsieur Richon, or for any other person; it was extorted from me by this man in a sort of ambuscade; but before I delivered it to him, signed in blank, I had made this mark on the paper which your Majesty can see, and it furnishes us with overwhelming proof against the culprit. Look."
The queen eagerly seized the paper, and looked at the cross which the duke pointed out to her.
"I do not understand a single word of the charge you make against me," said Richon, simply.
"What's that?" cried the duke; "you were not the masked man to whom I handed this paper upon the Dordogne?"
"I have never spoken to your lordship before this day; I have never been upon the Dordogne, masked," replied Richon, coldly.
"If it was not you it was some man sent by you."
"It would serve no purpose to conceal the truth," said Richon, as calm as ever; "the commission which you hold in your hand, Monsieur le Duc, I received from Madame la Princesse de Condé, by the hands of Monsieur le Duc de La Rochefoucauld; my name had then been inserted by Monsieur Lenet, with whose writing you are perhaps familiar. How the paper came into the hands of Madame la Princesse, or of Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld; when and where my name was written upon that paper by Monsieur Lenet, I have absolutely no idea, nor do I care, for it does not concern me."