ey was stolen?"

"How! What!"

"You want to know, do you? I will tell you. Do you remember the scratch
you discovered on the safe-door? You were so struck by it, that you
exclaimed directly you saw it. You carefully examined it, and were
convinced that it was a fresh scratch, only a few hours old. You
thought, and rightly too, that this scratch was made at the time of the
theft. Now, with what was it made? Evidently with a key. That being
the case, you should have asked for the keys both of the banker and the
cashier. One of them would have had some particles of the hard green
paint sticking to it."

Fanferlot listened with open mouth to this explanation. At the last
words, he violently slapped his forehead with his hand, and cried out:

"Imbecile! Imbecile!"

"You have rightly named yourself," said M. Lecoq. "Imbecile! This proof
stares you right in the face, and you don't see it! This scratch is the
sole and only clew to work the case upon, and you must go and lose the
traces of it. If I find the guilty party, it will be by means of this
scratch; and I am determined that I will find him."

At a distance the Squirrel very bravely abused and defied M. Lecoq; but,
in his presence, he yielded to the influence which this extraordinary
man exercised upon all who approached him.

This exact information, these minute details of all his secret
movements, and even thoughts, so upset his mind that he could not think
where and how M. Lecoq had obtained them. Finally he said, humbly:

"You must have been looking up this case, patron?"

"Probably I have; but I am not infallible, and may have overlooked some
important evidence. Take a seat, and tell me all you know."

M. Lecoq was not the man to be hoodwinked, so Fanferlot told the exact
truth, a rare thing for him to do. However as he reached the end of his
statement, a feeling of mortified vanity prevented his telling how he
had been fooled by Gypsy and the stout man.

Unfortunately for poor Fanferlot, M. Lecoq was always fully informed on
every subject in which he interested himself.

"It seems to me, Master Squirrel, that you have forgotten something. How
far did you follow the empty coach?"

Fanferlot blushed, and hung his head like a guilty school-boy.

"Oh, patron!" he cried, "and you know about that too! How could you
have----"

But a sudden idea flashed across his brain: he stopped short, bounded
off his chair, and cried:

"Oh! I know now: you were the l