"Then, according to you, mademoiselle, this is a mystification?"
"I'm afraid so," she said, tossing her head with a humorous air.
"But the Marquis?"
"The Marquis has nothing to do with the matter," she said. "The adventure of the Marquis came to an end on the 12th of July, 1721, when he swallowed a drug which put an end to his brilliant existence for good and all. All that remains of the Marquis, in spite of his hopes of a resurrection, is: firstly, a pinch of ashes mingled with the dust of this room; secondly, the authentic and curious letter which Maître Delarue read to us; thirdly, a lot of enormous diamonds hidden somewhere or other; fourthly, the clothes he was wearing at the supreme hour when he voluntarily shut himself up in his tomb, that is to say in this room."
"And those clothes?"
"Our man is dressed in them—unless he bought others, since the old ones must have been in a very bad state."
"But how could he get here? This window is too narrow; besides it's inaccessible. Then how?..."
"Doubtless the same way we did."
"Impossible! Think of all the obstacles, the difficulties, the wall of briers which barred the road."
"Are we sure that this wall was not already pierced in some other place, that the plaster partition had not been broken down and reconstructed, that the door of this room had not been opened before we came?"