On making myself known I was, as usual, received with the utmost courtesy, began to talk business, and one of the firm got into my carriage and rode with me to his bank to effect the sale of my draft on London for the sum of £2,500. Arriving at the bank I took a seat in the front office, while Mr. Brune went into the manager's room to introduce the transaction; the clerks eyed me, as I thought, suspiciously, but doubtless only curiously, because they perceived I was a foreigner. Another thing which I noticed sent a shiver through me. After Mr. Brune had been a few minutes in the manager's room, the bank porter stepped to the outer door, closed and locked it. It being but 12 o'clock, I imagined the precautionary measure must be due to my presence. "The Bordeaux affair is discovered and has been telegraphed all over France," was my first thought; "all is over with me. I am a candidate for a French prison, sure."
These and a thousand other thoughts flashed through my mind during the quarter of an hour preceding Mr. Brune's reappearance with his hands full of bank notes. I could hardly believe my eyes. I had suppressed all signs of the internal hurricane which raged during those prolonged moments of suspense.
Now the revulsion of feeling was so great that I nearly fainted. However, by a mental effort, I recovered my self-possession and effectually masked all inward convulsions.
Mr. Brune placed in my hands 62,000 francs, in notes of the Bank of France, and we then descended to the carriage and drove to my hotel, where we parted. I paid my bill, and at once made preparations to start for Lyons, which was to be the next and last scene of my operations in France.
As my train did not leave for three hours, I got into a carriage at some distance from the hotel and was driven toward the next station, located on the beautiful bay a few miles from Marseilles.
After driving along the shore of the bay for some miles I remember we met two women, dressed in the quaint costume common to that part of the country, each carrying a basket of eggs. I stopped the carriage and endeavored to enter into conversation with the pair, but could not understand a word of their patois. I then took a couple of eggs, handed out a silver franc piece, and drove on, leaving two astonished women standing in the road, gazing alternately at the piece of money and at the back of my carriage. Arriving at the station I found it would be an hour and a half to train time, and driving to a hotel on the shore I ordered dinner to be served in the upper room of a two-story tower overlooking the bay, with Marseilles in the distance. After dining I strolled along the beach, looking at some queer fish not found north of the Mediterranean, their colors vying in brilliancy with the plumage of tropical birds. Returning to the station I took a ticket for Lyons, stopping off at Arles about sunset, as I wished to see the amphitheatre and other relics of the Roman occupation.
I remained in Arles till midnight, then took the train, arriving in Lyons at 9 the next morning. Repairing to the Hotel de Lyons I had breakfast, and on looking over the papers became satisfied that as yet no discovery had been made. Therefore, I resolved to carry out my third and last financial enterprise and then return to London with all speed.
I called a carriage and drove at once to the establishment of Messrs. Coudert & Co. I sat near the desk, conversing with the head of the firm, and opened a dispatch I sent from Arles, and, after reading, handed it to him, saying: "I see that I shall have use for 60,000 francs, and must ask you to cash a draft on my letter of credit for that amount." He immediately stepped to the safe, took out a bundle of 1,000 franc notes, and counting out sixty, gave them to me.
As it was almost certain that the Bordeaux fraud would soon be discovered, I determined, now that my risky work was completed, to attempt an immediate escape from France by way of Paris and Calais. I did not, therefore, take the train direct from Lyons to Paris, but engaged a carriage and drove back to a junction toward Marseilles. Here I took a train which intersects further to the northward with another road leading through Lyons to Paris. After going the roundabout route above described, I was back at the Lyons station at 9 p.m. in a train bound for Paris, where I arrived without further incident.
The next morning (Sunday) as I left the railway station I thought detectives were watching me, but, in all probability, it was only the imagination of a guilty conscience. I was then wearing a full beard, and as a precautionary measure I, that morning, had all shaved off save the mustache. Not daring to leave Paris on the through express, which started at 3 o'clock p.m., nor to purchase a ticket to either Calais or London direct, I went to the station and took the noon accommodation train, which went no further toward Calais than Arras, a town some thirty miles from Paris. I arrived there about 1 p.m.