"And if the servants come? If Mme. Fauville—?"
"No one will come till we open the doors; and we shan't open them except to the Prefect of Police. It will be for him, afterward, to tell Mme. Fauville that she is a widow and that she has no son. Go! Hurry!"
"One moment, Chief; we are forgetting something that will help us enormously."
"What's that?"
"The little drab-cloth diary in the safe, in which M. Fauville describes the plot against him."
"Why, of course!" said Perenna. "You're right … especially as he omitted to mix up the letters of the lock last night, and the key is on the bunch which he left lying on the table."
They ran down the stairs.
"Leave this to me," said Mazeroux. "It's more regular that you shouldn't touch the safe."
He took the bunch, moved the glass case, and inserted the key with a feverish emotion which Don Luis felt even more acutely than he did. They were at last about to know the details of the mysterious story. The dead man himself would betray the secret of his murderers.
"Lord, what a time you take!" growled Don Luis.