I feel that perhaps I am about to show myself both inconsiderate and injudicious, but you know how miserable I am, and you will understand how the position I am in gives me grounds for being distracted. I am bent on talking this over with you, on knowing what you think of it. Perhaps even, knowing how clever you are, you might be able to find something, an indication, some detail, in my room? I have not touched anything.
I shall stay indoors all to-morrow in the hope of seeing you; do come if you possibly can. It seems to me that I am forsaken by everyone, and I trust only you...."
Jérôme Fandor read and reread this letter, which had been written with a trembling hand.
"Poor little soul!" he murmured. "Here is something more to add to her troubles! It is really terrible! It seems to me as if we should never come to the end of it; and I ask myself, whether the police will ever find the key to all these mysteries!...
"Did someone really break into Elizabeth Dollon's room to steal this paper? It is rather improbable. Judging from what she told me, there is nothing compromising in it. But then, why this search?... She is right so far: if the intruders had been merely thieves, they would have carried off her jewellery!... Then it is for that paper they came? Besides, ordinary burglars would have had considerable difficulty in getting into her room, where she is remarkably well guarded, by the very fact of there being other boarders in the house....
"No, the very audacity of this attempted theft seems to prove, that it is connected with the other affairs which have brought the name of Jacques Dollon into such prominence!
"I see in this the same extraordinary audacity, the same certainty of escape, the same long and careful preparation, for it is a by no means convenient place for a burglary in open day: comings and goings are perpetual, and the guilty persons ran a hundred risks of being caught...."
Fandor interrupted his reflections to read Elizabeth's letter once more.
"She is dying of fright! That is evident!... In any case she calls to me for help. Her letter was posted yesterday evening.... I will go and see her—and at once.... Who knows but I might find some clue which would put me on the right track?"