“But how splendid it is! What a magnificent adventure! I have always been perfectly certain that the past has bequeathed to the present fabulous treasures, the search for which inevitably takes the form of solving an almost insoluble problem. How could it be otherwise? Unlike us, our ancestors had not at their disposal the strong-rooms and cellars of the Bank of France. They were obliged to choose natural hiding-places in which they heaped up their gold and jewels, and the secret of which they passed on by means of some mnemonical formula which was, so to speak, the key of the lock. Let a catastrophe occur, the secret was lost, and so was the treasure so painfully accumulated.”
His excitement was increasing, and he cried joyfully: “But this treasure shall not be lost, Josine; and it is one of the most fantastic of all of them. If Brother Nicolas spoke the truth—and everything goes to show that he did speak the truth—if the ten thousand precious stones were dropped into this strange strong-box, one can reckon this property left by the Middle Ages,[C] this result of the efforts of millions of monks, this gigantic offering of a whole Christian people during the great epoch of fanaticism, everything that is in the bowels of a boundary stone in a meadow in Normandy at something like a thousand million francs! It’s wonderful!”
Abruptly he moved to the couch on which Josephine was sitting and sat down beside her as if he wished to cut short his declaiming and demanded in imperious accents:
“And what has your rôle been in this adventure, Josine? What is your contribution to it? Have you any special information from Cagliostro?”
“Only a few words,” she said. “On the list of the four enigmas which he left and which is in my possession, he has written against this one and against The Fortune of The Kings of France this note: ‘Between Rouen, le Havre, and Dieppe. (So Marie Antoinette declared.)’.”
“Yes—yes—the Caux country ... the estuary of the ancient river on the banks of which the Kings of France and the monks so prospered,” Ralph murmured thoughtfully. “It is undoubtedly there that they have hidden the savings of ten centuries of rule and ten centuries of religion.... The two coffers are there—not far from one another naturally—and it is there that I shall find them.”
Then, turning towards Josine, he added: “So you were hunting for them, too?”
“Yes, but without any precise data.”
“And another woman was looking for them as well as you?” he said, looking into the depths of her eyes. “The woman who murdered Beaumagnan’s two confederates.”
“Yes. The Marquise de Belmonte, who is, I suppose, another descendant of Cagliostro,” she said.