“I say and I swear that Siméon Diodokis was on our side. He was our man. It was he who kept us informed of Essarès Bey’s shady tricks. It was he who rang us up at nine o’clock in the evening to tell us that Essarès had lit the furnace of the old hothouses and that the signal of the sparks was going to work. It was he who opened the door to us, pretending to resist, of course, and allowed us to tie him up in the porter’s lodge. It was he, lastly, who paid and dismissed the men-servants.”
“But why? Why this treachery? For the sake of money?”
“No, from hatred. He bore Essarès Bey a hatred that often gave us the shudders.”
“What prompted it?”
“I don’t know. Siméon keeps his own counsel. But it dated a long way back.”
“Did he know where the gold was hidden?” asked M. Masseron.
“No. And it was not for want of hunting to find out. He never knew how the bags got out the cellar, which was only a temporary hiding-place.”
“And yet they used to leave the grounds. If so, how are we to know that the same thing didn’t happen this time?”
“This time we were keeping watch the whole way round outside, a thing which Siméon could not do by himself.”
Patrice now put the question: