d the detective stood before it.

All this Coquenil had done on a chance, without positive knowledge, save
for the assurance of the black-whiskered valet that the baron wrote
frequently in a diary which he kept locked in the safe. Whether this was
true, and, if so, whether the baron had been mad enough to put down with
his own hand a record of his own wickedness, were matters of pure
conjecture. Coquenil was convinced that this journal would contain what he
wanted; he did not believe that a man like De Heidelmann-Bruck would keep a
diary simply to fill in with insipidities. If he kept it at all, it would
be because it pleased him to analyze, fearlessly, his own extraordinary
doings, good or bad. The very fact that the baron was different from
ordinary men, a law unto himself, made it likely that he would disregard
what ordinary men would call prudence in a matter like this; there is no
such word as imprudence for one who is practically all-powerful, and, if it
tickled the baron's fancy to keep a journal of crime, it was tolerably
certain he would keep it.

The event proved that he did keep it. On one of the shelves of the safe,
among valuable papers and securities, the detective found a thick book
bound in black leather and fastened with heavy gold clasps. It was the
diary.

With a thrill of triumph, Coquenil seized upon the volume, then, closing
the safe carefully, without touching anything else, he returned to his room
in the stable. His purpose was accomplished, and now he had only one
thought--to leave the _hotel_ as quickly as possible; it would be a matter
of a few moments to pack his modest belongings, then he could rouse the
doorkeeper and be off with his bag and the precious record.

As he started to act on this decision, however, and steal softly down to
the courtyard, the detective paused and looked at his watch. It was not yet
three o'clock, and M. Paul, in the real burglar spirit, reflected that his
departure with a bag, at this unseasonable hour, might arouse the
doorkeeper's suspicion; whereas, if he waited until half past five, the
gate would be open and he could go out unnoticed. So he decided to wait.
After all, there was no danger, the baron was away from Paris, and no one
would enter the library before seven or eight.

While he waited, Coquenil opened the diary and began to read. There were
some four hundred neatly written pages, brief separate entries without
dates, separate thoughts as it were,