“Look here, captain, Ya-Bon always carries a piece of chalk in his pocket. As he doesn’t know how to write, except just the letters forming my name, he has drawn these two straight lines which, with the line of the wall, make a triangle . . . the golden triangle.”
Don Luis drew himself up:
“The clue is rather meager. But Ya-Bon looks upon me as a wizard. He never doubted that I should manage to find this spot and that those three lines would be enough for me. Poor Ya-Bon!”
“But,” objected Patrice, “all this, according to you, took place before our return to Paris, between twelve and one o’clock, therefore.”
“Yes.”
“Then what about the shot which we have just heard, four or five hours later?”
“As to that I’m not so positive. We may assume that Siméon squatted somewhere in the dark. Possibly at the first break of day, feeling easier and hearing nothing of Ya-Bon, he risked taking a step or two. Then Ya-Bon, keeping watch in silence, would have leaped upon him.”
“So you think . . .”
“I think that there was a struggle, that Ya-Bon was wounded and that Siméon . . .”
“That Siméon escaped?”