“What do I see within these walls?” I echoed stupidly.
“No, no! You have no eyes at all; you see nothing. Enumerate them without seeing. Count them ALL.”
“There is, first of all, you and I,” I said, understanding, at last, what he wished to reach.
“Very well.”
“Neither you nor I,” I continued, “is Larsan.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I echoed.
“Yes, why. Tell me. You must give a reason why you believe so. I acknowledge that I am not Larsan; I am sure of that, for I am Rouletabille; but, face to face with Rouletabille, tell me why you cannot be Larsan?”
“Because you saw him——”
“Idiot!” exclaimed Rouletabille closing his eyes in with his clasped hands more firmly than before. “I have no eyes. I can’t see anything! If Jerry, the croupier at Monte Carlo, had not seen the Comte de Maupas sit down at his table, he would have sworn that the man who picked up the cards was Ballmeyer! If Noblet at the garrison had not found himself face to face one evening at the Troyons, with a man whom he recognized as the Vicomte Drouet d’Eslon, he would have sworn that the man whom he came to arrest and whom he did not arrest because he had seen him, was Ballmeyer. If Inspector Giraud, who knew the Comte de Motteville as well as you know me, had not seen him one afternoon at the race course at Longchamps, chatting with two of his friends—had not seen, I say, the Comte de Motteville, he would have arrested Ballmeyer. Ah, you see, Sainclair!” ejaculated the lad in a voice shaken with sobs, “my father was born before I was! One will have to be very strong and very shrewd to capture my father!”