. In a short time, the large room held no more
secrets for him, so he extended his investigations to the other rooms.
He examined the interior and the exterior, the stones of the foundation,
the bricks in the walls; he raised the slates of the roof.

One day, he came with a pickaxe and a spade, gave me the spade, kept the
pickaxe, pointed to the adjacent vacant lots, and said: "Come."

I followed him, but I lacked his enthusiasm. He divided the vacant land
into several sections which he examined in turn. At last, in a corner,
at the angle formed by the walls of two neighboring proprietors, a small
pile of earth and gravel, covered with briers and grass, attracted his
attention. He attacked it. I was obliged to help him. For an hour, under
a hot sun, we labored without success. I was discouraged, but Daspry
urged me on. His ardor was as strong as ever.

At last, Daspry's pickaxe unearthed some bones--the remains of a
skeleton to which some scraps of clothing still hung. Suddenly, I turned
pale. I had discovered, sticking in the earth, a small piece of iron cut
in the form of a rectangle, on which I thought I could see red spots. I
stooped and picked it up. That little iron plate was the exact size of a
playing-card, and the red spots, made with red lead, were arranged upon
it in a manner similar to the seven-of-hearts, and each spot was pierced
with a round hole similar to the perforations in the two playing cards.

"Listen, Daspry, I have had enough of this. You can stay if it interests
you. But I am going."

Was that simply the expression of my excited nerves? Or was it the
result of a laborious task executed under a burning sun? I know that
I trembled as I walked away, and that I went to bed, where I remained
forty-eight hours, restless and feverish, haunted by skeletons that
danced around me and threw their bleeding hearts at my head.

Daspry was faithful to me. He came to my house every day, and remained
three or four hours, which he spent in the large room, ferreting,
thumping, tapping.

"The letters are here, in this room," he said, from time to time, "they
are here. I will stake my life on it."

On the morning of the third day I arose--feeble yet, but cured. A
substantial breakfast cheered me up. But a letter that I received that
afternoon contributed, more than anything else, to my complete recovery,
and aroused in me a lively curiosity. This was the letter:

"Monsieur,

"The drama, the first act