"A clue that can be established upon evidence, madame. It can be established that the person to whom I have referred, and in whom I believe I have discovered by a fortunate combination of very remarkable and almost miraculous circumstances the heir in question, bears, in the first place, the same name which Monsieur d'Estein (pray look at letter No. 25) says he intends to assume after the elopement with Marie Montbert. In the second place, it can be established that a man called Stein, and accompanied by a young woman who passed for his wife, and by a child which passed for his son, settled shortly after Baron Harald's death in the town of W----."
"How do you know that?" asked Felix.
"I have been myself to W----, and have spoken with the old woman in whose house Mr. Stein lived from the first to the very last day of his residence in that town."
"Go on!"
"In the third place, it is established that this Mr. Stein is the same person who eloped with Marie Montbert from Grenwitz, viz., Monsieur d'Estein, who alone had a right to help the young lady, and who alone was obliged to do so."
"Why the same person?"
"Because the man who managed the elopement looked exactly like the man who a few months afterwards settled in W----."
"That might not be so easy to prove," cried Felix with a smile of incredulity.
"Easier than you think. I have (quite accidentally) discovered the man at whose house Monsieur d'Estein, then already under the name of Stein, stayed a fortnight in order to ascertain the opportunities at Grenwitz, and who afterwards drove in the night of the elopement the couple in his carriage from Grenwitz to that very ferry on which you crossed to-day. This man's name is Clas Wendorf; he lives in Fashwitz, and is well known to everybody (even to the Rev. Mr. Jager) as a perfectly trustworthy man. If this man were to be confronted with Mrs. Pahnke in W----, the identity of the man who eloped with Marie Montbert, viz., Monsieur d'Estein, with the French teacher Stein in W----, would be established beyond all doubt."
The baroness and Felix looked at each other, while Timm was making his statement, in a manner which betrayed but too clearly the consternation which the irresistible logic of their enemy produced in their minds.