I drew myself up.
‘Silence, if you please, madame. I have made you a promise which I shall know how to keep. In the meantime it is clear that we have nothing more to say to one another, and that the sooner you are out of this building the better it will be for all parties.’
Madame Humbert rose, gave me a glance in which curiosity, respect, and apprehension were strangely mingled, and quitted my presence without venturing to say another word.
I have never seen her since.
The following day, as I entered my private room at the usual hour, I was conscious of a singular impression, in the nature of a presentiment. Some men possess a sense, more subtle than sight or smell, by means of which they are able to detect a personal presence, more especially one hostile to themselves. I have been well served by an instinct of this kind on more than one occasion, and now it asserted itself so strongly that for an instant I believed that there must be some one hiding in my room.
A glance around removed this suspicion. Everything was in its place as usual—was even more in its place than usual, if I may be permitted the hyperbole.
I went to the secret drawer in which I kept the cipher despatches concerning the Panama affair (on which I was engaged about this time).
It seemed to me that the spring worked a little more smoothly than when I had last opened the drawer. The papers inside lay exactly as I had left them overnight. Struck by a sudden thought, I pulled the drawer right out, lit a match, and examined the dusty floor of the recess.
I was rewarded by the sight of one—two—three distinct prints of finger-tips in the dust.
That sight, of course, told me everything. My office had been ransacked during the night by the French police, and those prints had been left by fingers tapping in search of the hiding-place of the Humbert millions.