CHAPTER XIII
THE VEIL IS LIFTED
I will not linger over the two films of this second performance and the evident connection between them. At the present moment we are too near the close of this extraordinary story to waste time over minute, tedious, unimportant details. We must remember that, on the following morning, a newspaper printed the first part, and, a few hours later, the second part of the famous Prévotelle report, in which the problem was attacked in so masterly a fashion and solved with so profoundly impressive a display of method and logic. I shall never forget it. I shall never forget that, during that night, while I sat in my bedroom reflecting upon the manner in which Massignac had been spirited away, during that night when the long-expected thunderstorm burst over the Paris district, Benjamin Prévotelle was writing the opening pages of his report. And I shall never forget that I was on the point of hearing of all this from Benjamin Prévotelle himself!
At ten o'clock, in fact, one of the neighbours living nearest to the lodge, from whose house my uncle or Bérangère had been in the habit of telephoning, sent word to say that he was connected with Paris and that I was asked to come to the telephone without losing a minute.
I went round in a very bad temper. I was worn out with fatigue. It was raining cats and dogs; and the night was so dark that I knocked against the trees and houses as I walked.
The moment I arrived, I took up the receiver. Some one at the other end addressed me in a trembling voice:
"M. Beaugrand . . . M. Beaugrand . . . Excuse me . . . I have discovered . . ."
I did not understand at first and asked who was speaking.
"My name will convey nothing to you," was the answer. "Benjamin Prévotelle. I'm not a person of any particular importance. I am an engineer by profession; I left the Central School two years ago."
I interrupted him:
"One moment, please, one moment. . . . Hullo! . . . Are you there? . . . Benjamin Prévotelle? But I know your name! . . . Yes, I remember, I've seen it in my uncle's papers."