"If you will first hand over to me 500,000 francs as a reward for my disclosure as well as compensation to my fiancée and myself for our unjust arrest, I will disclose the secret," he replied, "but not otherwise."
At length after some discussion a cheque for the amount asked for by the professor was handed over to him.
"Excuse me," replied Delapine, "but I should much prefer to be paid in notes."
The head of the Administration gave a grim smile as he ordered the sum of half a million francs to be handed to him in crisp bank notes.
"Ah! that is better," replied Delapine as he put them very carefully away in his pocket-book.
"The whole secret, gentlemen," said the professor slowly and with great deliberation, "lies in my will power. It is the power of Mind over Matter. When I concentrate the whole of my will on the little ball, and resolve that it shall stop, it is obliged to do so. That is the whole secret, gentlemen—'Mens agitat molem' (the mind moves matter) is just as true to-day as it was when Vigil wrote these words nearly nineteen hundred years ago."
Thereupon Delapine took Renée by the hand, and bowing gracefully to the astonished and bewildered officials, and shaking hands with M. Eperon, he left the gendarmerie amid the applause of the crowd.
As his party were leaving the police court, Delapine gave a handsome present to each of the croupiers, and also paid a couple of detectives to assist in carrying the spoils in a large bag to the carriage. On his way out he met a young woman sobbing bitterly.
"What is the matter?" asked Delapine.
She told him that her husband was lying ill in Paris, and there being no means of supporting him and her children, she had sold everything she possessed, and had taken the train to Monte Carlo with the idea of winning sufficient money to keep the home going, and now, alas! she had lost her all.