The room contained two beds, a sofa, and a chest of drawers. This the detective signed to the gendarmes to open. They tried it, but it was locked. "I think I have the key," said Luisa with the utmost indifference. She went down, accompanied by a gendarme, and returned immediately with a little basket of keys which she offered to the detective.
"I do not know the key," she said. "It is never used. It must be one of these."
He tried them all, but in vain. Then the Receiver tried, and then Franco. The right one was not there.
"Send to S. Mamette for the lock-smith," said Luisa, calmly. The Receiver looked at the detective as if to say: "It seems to me unnecessary," but the detective turned his back upon him and exclaimed to Luisa: "This key must be somewhere!"
The chest of drawers, a piece of rococo furniture, had metal handles to each drawer. One of the gendarmes, the strongest, tried to force the drawers open. He did not succeed either with the top one or with the second. Just at that moment Luisa remembered that she had seen the sabre in the third drawer, together with a roll of drawings. The gendarme seized the handles of the third. "This one is not locked," said he. In fact it opened easily. The detective took the light and bent over to examine it.
Franco had seated himself on the sofa, his eyes fixed on the rafters of the ceiling. When his wife saw the drawer pulled open she sank down beside him, took his hand, and pressed it spasmodically.
She heard some papers rustle, and the Receiver murmured, in a benign voice: "Drawings." Then the detective exclaimed: "Ah!" and the satellites all leaned forward to see. She had the strength to rise and inquire; "What is it?" The detective was holding a long pasteboard case, curved and slim, and bearing a label with an inscription. He had already read the inscription to himself; he now read it aloud with an accent of ineffable sarcasm and satisfaction. "The sabre of Lieutenant Pietro Ribera, killed at Malojaroslavetz in 1812." Franco started to his feet, astounded and incredulous, and at the same moment the adjunct opened the case. From where he stood Franco could not see it, and he glanced at his wife, who could. Her lips were white and he thought it was with fright, although this did not seem possible.
But her lips were white with joy, for the case contained only an empty scabbard. Luisa suddenly drew back into the shadow and sank upon the sofa, struggling with a violent inward trembling, vexed with herself and ashamed of her weakness, which however, she soon conquered. Meanwhile the detective, who had removed the scabbard and examined it on all sides, asked Franco where the sabre was. Franco was about to answer that he did not know, which was perfectly true, but reflecting that this might seem like self-justification, he said—
"In Russia."
The sabre was not in Russia, but fast in the mud, at the bottom of the lake, where Uncle Piero had secretly flung it rather than give it up.