"First of all, put this as your title:
An Audacious Theft
"That does not tell the reader anything, but it awakens his curiosity.... Let us continue!
"Write."
XI
AN AUDACIOUS THEFT
Two hours after Juve had dictated his article to Fandor, our journalist was reading it, in proof, in the offices of La Capitale. His article ran thus:
"By a fortunate coincidence we found ourselves, this very morning, in the directorial office of the Barbey-Nanteuil bank, chatting with Monsieur Barbey himself, when Monsieur Nanteuil arrived, breathless, and announced to his partner that a sensational robbery had just been committed in the rue du Quatre Septembre, a robbery involving a sum of twenty millions representing a clearance recently effected by the Federated Republic.
"It seems that at ten o'clock this morning, Monsieur Nanteuil accompanied the little hand-cart used for transferring the bullion and paper money to the station, from whence it was to be despatched. According to custom, six of the bank clerks and three plain clothes men went with Monsieur Nanteuil. But, at the very moment when the hand-cart passed out of the place de l'Opéra and turned the corner of the rue du Quatre Septembre, that is to say, at the precise moment when it was passing the palisade, surrounding the works on the Auteuil-Opéra Metropolitan line, a formidable explosion was heard, and the hand-cart, as well as the men who were drawing it, and escorting it, including Monsieur Nanteuil himself, disappeared in a deep excavation caused by the explosion, whilst a water pipe which had burst at the same moment, poured out torrents of water, flooding the surrounding pavement and roadway.