twenty francs, signed
by two Orcival citizens in Robelot's favor. M. Plantat could
scarcely conceal his disappointment.

"Nothing of importance," whispered he in M. Lecoq's ear. "How do
you explain that?"

"Perfectly," responded the detective. "He was a sly rogue, this
Robelot, and he was cunning enough to conceal his sudden fortune
and patient enough to appear to be years accumulating it. You only
find in his secretary effects which he thought he could avow
without danger. How much is there in all?"

Plantat rapidly added up the different sums, and said:

"About fourteen thousand five hundred francs."

"Madame Sauvresy gave him more than that," said the detective,
positively. "If he had no more than this, he would not have been
such a fool as to put it all into land. He must have a hoard of
money concealed somewhere."

"Of course he must. But where?"

"Ah, let me look."

He began to rummage about, peering into everything in the room,
moving the furniture, sounding the floor with his heels, and rapping
on the wall here and there. Finally he came to the fireplace, before
which he stopped.

"This is July," said he. "And yet there are cinders here in the
fireplace."

"People sometimes neglect to clean them out in the spring."

"True; but are not these very clean and distinct? I don't find any
of the light dust and soot on them which ought to be there after
they have lain several months."

He went into the second room whither he had sent the men after they
had completed their task, and said:

"I wish one of you would get me a pickaxe."

All the men rushed out; M. Lecoq returned to his companion.

"Surely," muttered he, as if apart, "these cinders have been
disturbed recently, and if they have been--"

He knelt down, and pushing the cinders away, laid bare the stones
of the fireplace. Then taking a thin piece of wood, he easily
inserted it into the cracks between the stones.

"See here, Monsieur Plantat," said he. "There is no cement between
these stones, and they are movable; the treasure must be here."

When the pickaxe was brought, he gave a single blow with it; the
stones gaped apart, and betrayed a wide and deep hole between them.

"Ah," cried he, with a triumphant air, "I knew it well enough."

The hole was full of rouleaux of twenty-franc pieces; on counting
them, M. Lecoq found that there were nineteen thousand five hundred
francs.

The old justice's face betrayed an expression of profoun