"Why, of course: look!"

"Are you convinced? Have we mastered the secret at last?"

"The front page-what does the front page say?"

"Read: The Whole Truth now first exhibited. One hundred copies printed by myself for the instruction of the Court."

"That's it, that's it," muttered Ma.s.siban, in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "It's the copy s.n.a.t.c.hed from the flames! It's the very book which Louis XIV. condemned."

They turned over the pages. The first part set forth the explanations given by Captain de Larbeyrie in his journal.

"Get on, get on!" said Beautrelet, who was in a hurry to come to the solution.

"Get on? What do you mean? Not at all! We know that the Man with the Iron Mask was imprisoned because he knew and wished to divulge the secret of the Royal house of France. But how did he know it? And why did he wish to divulge it? Lastly, who was that strange personage? A half-brother of Louis XIV., as Voltaire maintained, or Mattioli, the Italian minister, as the modern critics declare? Hang it, those are questions of the very first interest!"

"Later, later," protested Beautrelet, feverishly turning the pages, as though he feared that the book would fly out of his hands before he had solved the riddle.

"But-" said Ma.s.siban, who doted on historical details.

"We have plenty of time-afterward-let's see the explanation first-"

Suddenly Beautrelet stopped. The doc.u.ment! In the middle of a left-hand page, his eyes saw the five mysterious lines of dots and figures! He made sure, with a glance, that the text was identical with that which he had studied so long; the same arrangement of the signs, the same intervals that permitted of the isolation of the word demoiselles and the separation of the two words aiguille and creuse.

A short note preceded it:

All the necessary indications, it appears, were reduced by King Louis XIII. into a little table which I transcribe below.

Here followed the table of dots and figures.

Then came the explanation of the doc.u.ment itself. Beautrelet read, in a broken voice:

As will be seen, this table, even after we have changed the figures into vowels, affords no light. One might say that, in order to decipher the puzzle, we must first know it. It is, at most, a clue given to those who know the paths of the labyrinth.

Let us take this clue and proceed. I will guide you.

The fourth line first. The fourth line contains measurements and indications. By complying with the indications and noting the measurements set down, we inevitably attain our object, on condition, be it understood, that we know where we are and whither we are going, in a word, that we are enlightened as to the real meaning of the Hollow Needle. This is what we may learn from the first three lines. The first is so conceived to revenge myself on the King; I had warned him, for that matter-

Beautrelet stopped, nonplussed.

"What? What is it?" said Ma.s.siban.

"The words don't make sense."

"No more they do," replied Ma.s.siban. "'The first is so conceived to revenge myself on the King-' What can that mean?"

"d.a.m.n!" yelled Beautrelet.

"Well?"

"Torn! Two pages! The next two pages! Look at the marks!"

He trembled, shaking with rage and disappointment. Ma.s.siban bent forward.

"It is true-there are the ends of two pages left, like bookbinders' guards. The marks seem pretty fresh. They've not been cut, but torn out-torn out with violence. Look, all the pages at the end of the book have been rumpled."

"But who can have done it? Who?" moaned Isidore, wringing his hands. "A servant? An accomplice?"

"All the same, it may date back to a few months since," observed Ma.s.siban.

"Even so-even so-some one must have hunted out and taken the book-Tell me, monsieur," cried Beautrelet, addressing the baron, "is there no one whom you suspect?"

"We might ask my daughter."

"Yes-yes-that's it-perhaps she will know."

M. de Velines rang for the footman. A few minutes later, Mme. de Villemon entered. She was a young woman, with a sad and resigned face. Beautrelet at once asked her:

"You found this volume upstairs, madame, in the library?"

"Yes, in a parcel of books that had not been uncorded."

"And you read it?"

"Yes, last night."

"When you read it, were those two pages missing? Try and remember: the two pages following this table of figures and dots?"

"No, certainly not," she said, greatly astonished. "There was no page missing at all."

"Still, somebody has torn-"

"But the book did not leave my room last night."

"And this morning?"

"This morning, I brought it down here myself, when M. Ma.s.siban's arrival was announced."

"Then-?"

"Well, I don't understand-unless-but no."

"What?"

"Georges-my son-this morning-Georges was playing with the book."

She ran out headlong, accompanied by Beautrelet, Ma.s.siban and the baron. The child was not in his room. They hunted in every direction. At last, they found him playing behind the castle. But those three people seemed so excited and called him so peremptorily to account that he began to yell aloud.

Everybody ran about to right and left. The servants were questioned. It was an indescribable tumult. And Beautrelet received the awful impression that the truth was ebbing away from him, like water trickling through his fingers.