In the evening, after a silent dinner, I had an opportunity to reflect. The idea had struck me immediately, and now it was fortified within me, that Joseph was not a stranger to this bold robbery. I even went so far as to hope that between his Cherbourg trip and the preparation of this audacious and incomparably executed stroke there had been an evident connection. And I remembered the answer he made to me, on the eve of his departure:
"That depends ... on a very important matter."
Although he endeavored to appear natural, I perceived in his movements, in his attitude, in his silence, an unusual embarrassment, visible only to me.
I took so much satisfaction in this presentiment that I did not try to put it aside. On the contrary, I felt an intense joy in contemplating the idea. Marianne having left us alone a moment in the kitchen, I approached Joseph, and, in a coaxing, tender voice, moved by an inexpressible emotion, I asked him:
"Tell me, Joseph, that it was you who outraged the little Claire in the woods. Tell me that it was you who stole Madame's silver service."
Surprised, stupefied by this question, Joseph looked at me. Then, suddenly, without answering, he drew me to him, and, making my neck bend under a kiss that fell like a blow of a club, he said to me:
"Don't talk about that, since you are to come with me to the little café, and since our two souls are alike."
I remember having seen in a little salon at the Countess Fardin's a sort of Hindoo idol, horribly and murderously beautiful. At this moment Joseph resembled it.
Days passed, and months. Naturally the magistrates were unable to discover anything, and finally they abandoned the investigation. Their opinion was that the crime was the work of expert burglars from Paris. Paris has a broad back. Go look for them in the heap!