The Minister shook his head.
“Yes; that is what he told me the last time I saw him at the Artillery meeting. He was on the trace of a discovery destined to give to our cannons so crushing a superiority that we were to become for long the arbiters of victory. The struggle against us would have been marked by such massacres, accomplished with such absolute precision, that our military supremacy would have been certain once more. Has this had anything to do with the discovery?”
“Then you admit, General, that malevolence may not have been entirely foreign to this mishap!”
“I admit nothing, Vallenot. I suspect everything. When you have told me all you know, we will talk it over. Continue.”
“On reaching the spot, we found a body of troops, who had been ordered by the Ministry to proceed there, guarding the approaches of the property. There was already collected a crowd of three or four hundred people, discussing the matter, without counting a score of journalists, who made more noise than all the others together. They were complaining that they were not allowed to visit the spot where the explosion had taken place among the still smoking ruins of the villa. But there was in command a stern little lieutenant, who, in quite military fashion, had maintained order. Probably the press will be against us, but in the mean time we shall not have been interrupted; and that is something to be thankful for. Inside, there was only the secretary of the Prefecture of Police and the head of the detective force. My agent and I had come at the right moment. The researches were just beginning—”
“Where? In the house?”
“On the site of what had been the house, and which now offered to the gaze nothing but a gaping hole, at the bottom of which appeared a cellar, the vaults of which had been burst open. A staved-in barrel of wine formed a red pool on the floor. Not a trace of the staircase remained. The very steps had disappeared, and the stones were broken up into fragments as large as pigeons’ eggs. Never should I have thought such a crumbling possible. Wonderful to relate, one side of a wall which must have belonged to a wash-house remained standing, along with a narrow window, in the iron bars of which a cloth-rag was waving. We were all staring at this solitary vestige of the disaster, when the chief of the detective force cautiously approached the spot. Raising his stick, he touched the shapeless rag hanging there, picked it up from the ground with an exclamation of surprise, and exposed it to our gaze. It was a human arm, still covered with both coat and shirt sleeves, cut off at the elbow, and covered with blood, the hand quite black.”
“Most extraordinary!” exclaimed the Minister.
“Rather sinister, General,” continued Colonel Vallenot. “I have seen hundreds of men killed on the field of battle, and thousands of wounded carried off in ambulances. At Gravelotte, I saw the head of the captain of my squadron roll at my feet, and the eyes wink repeatedly in the dust. It had been carried off by the bursting of a shell. In Tonkin I have found soldiers cut in four, their faces still grinning in spite of their torture. But never have I been so impressed as I was by this human arm, the sole remaining vestige of the drama we were trying to understand. The Government agent was the first to regain his sang froid, and he said, ‘Gentlemen, this is an important piece of evidence. This arm has evidently been hurled across these bars by the explosion. But to whom did it belong? Is it one of the ill-fated General de Trémont’s arms?’ ‘The General did not live alone in the villa,’ observed the detective. ‘There was a cook and a man-servant. Let us at once eliminate the supposition of the cook. This is a man’s arm; accordingly, it belonged either to the General or to his valet. Unless—’ There was a silence. The Government agent turned towards him and said, ‘Well, finish. Unless it belongs to the author of the catastrophe himself.’”
“Ah!” said the Minister; “then he, too, thought the affair might be the result of a crime.”