"How did you discover them?"
"We received instructions yesterday from Paris to report immediately the receipt of any notes of this series. Our cashier, while checking up our deposits yesterday evening, happened upon these notes, and identified them as a part of the railway deposit of the day before. The matter was reported to me, and I at once forwarded the report to Paris. This morning I received a telegram instructing me to report in person to M. Delcassé, and I hastened to do so."
"You have done well, sir," said the Minister, "and I thank you. We will ask you to exchange these notes for two others, and furthermore to say nothing to any one of this discovery or of having seen me."
The exchange was made, the banker departed, and Lépine, with the notes in his pocket-book, hastened away to the Gare Centrale. Arrived there, he asked for the chief, introduced himself, and stated his business.
"I have here two notes," he said, "which were deposited by your cashier last Monday afternoon. It is most important that I find out from whom this money was received, and to what point tickets were purchased. The purchase was made, no doubt, some time during Monday."
"The money might have been received Sunday," the chef-du-gare pointed out. "Since the bank is closed Sunday, we can make no deposit on that day."
"I have reason to believe it was not received until Monday," said Lépine. "May I interrogate the cashiers, beginning with the one who was on duty at daybreak Monday?"
"There are two men on duty at all hours," explained the chief; "and each trick is eight hours in length. The first begins at six o'clock in the morning. At what hour was daybreak on Monday?"
"At five o'clock and forty-nine minutes."
"The clerks who were in the bureau at that hour are not here now, but I can have them called."