"What the deuce is the meaning of all this?" he was asking himself. "Two hours ago, Fandor telephones me that he must see me on a matter of the utmost urgency ... he telephones me that he cannot go out, that he is waiting for me.... And now, not only is he not here, but I stumble on an agent from the Second Bureau.... I encounter a Vagualame disguised, who runs as if all the devils of hell were after him ... who makes off with extraordinary agility, whose presence of mind in burking pursuit is marvellous!... Who is this fellow?... What was he up to in Fandor's flat?... Where is Fandor?"
Our detective had just re-entered the journalist's study. There, on the floor, lay the bundle which had excited his curiosity when Vagualame was present.
"The enemy," thought he, "has retired, but has abandoned his baggage!"
Juve relighted the lamp, and undid the black serge covering of the bundle.
"Ah! I might have guessed as much, it is an accordion, Vagualame's accordion!"
Mechanically turning and returning the instrument of music, Juve slipped his hands into the leather holders, wishing to relax the bellows, which were at full stretch.... To his surprise the bellows resisted.
"Why, there must be something inside the accordion!" he exclaimed.
Juve drew from his pocket a dagger knife and slit open the bellows with one sharp cut.... Something black fell out—a piece of stuff, Juve picked it up, spread it out, and considered it.... He grew pale as he looked, staggered like a drunken man, and sank on a chair, overcome. What he held in his hand was a hooded cloak, long and black, such as Italian bandits wear—a species of mask.
Sunk in his chair, his eyes staring at this sinister garment, Juve seemed to see rising before him a form at once mysterious and clearly defined—the form of an unknown man enveloped in this cloak as in a sheath, his face hidden by the hooded mask, disguised, by just such a cloak as he had exposed to view when he slashed open the bellows of this accordion!
This form, mysterious, nameless, tragic, thus evoked, Juve had rarely seen; but each time that figure in hooded black had appeared, it was in circumstances so serious, under conditions so tragic, that it was graven on his memory—graven beyond mistake—graven ineffaceably!