"I am at your disposal." And he began to trace a plan, a pretty rough one, of the various rooms which made up the first floor of his house.
"Is that what you want?" he asked.
Jérôme Fandor rose quickly and went towards Nanteuil.
The journalist's nerves must have been out of order—in a jumpy state, despite his apparent calm, for, in approaching the writing-table, he suddenly staggered, nearly fell, tried to regain his balance, and that so clumsily that he upset the contents of a large ink-pot on the writing-desk....
"Take care!" said Monsieur Nanteuil, who, to save himself from coming into contact with this inky inundation, threw himself back in his chair, and lifted his hands above the flood of ink....
The banker repeated:
"Take care!... Here is a fresh catastrophe!..."
But he did not finish what he intended to say! Quick as thought, Fandor steadied himself, and before anyone could guess his intention he seized the banker's right hand, pushed it forcibly into the wide-spreading ink, then, immediately after, pressed it on to a sheet of blotting paper which took the hand's imprint quite clearly....
This imprint he glanced at but a moment.... Like a flag, he waved it above his head!
"It is the Jacques Dollon imprint!" he shouted. "The hand of Monsieur Nanteuil, whose characteristics are known in the anthropometric section, has just left the imprint of—Jacques Dollon!..."