At this moment, as he was leaning his head out of the carriage window, a drop of blood trickled down his cheek.
“Well! Good-bye to my portmanteau! It can’t be helped! The throw said I wasn’t to get out here. It was right.”
He shut the door and sat down again.
“There were no papers in my portmanteau and my linen isn’t marked. What are the risks?... No matter, I’d better sail as soon as possible; it’ll be a little less amusing perhaps, but a good deal wiser.”
In the meantime the train started again.
“It’s not so much my portmanteau that I regret as my beaver, which I really should have liked to retrieve. Well! let’s think no more about it.”
He filled another pipe, lit it, and then, plunging his hand into the inside pocket of Fleurissoire’s coat, pulled out: a letter from Arnica, a Cook’s ticket and a large yellow envelope, which he opened.
“Three, four, five, six thousand-franc notes! Of no interest to honest folk!”
He returned the notes to the envelope and the envelope to the coat pocket.
But when, a moment later, he examined the Cook’s ticket, Lafcadio’s brain whirled. On the first page was written the name of Julius de Baraglioul. “Am I going mad?” he asked himself. “What can he have had to do with Julius?... A stolen ticket?... No, not possible!... a borrowed ticket ... must be. Lord! Lord! Perhaps I’ve made a mess of it. These old gentlemen are sometimes better connected than one thinks....”