ng.

People do not wreck vessels for the pleasure of wrecking them. Men do
not run all those risks of fog, rocks, swimming, concealment, and flight
without an interest. What could have been Clubin's interest?

The act seemed plain, but the motive was puzzling.

Hence a doubt in many minds. Where there is no motive, it is natural to
infer that there was no act.

The missing link was important. The letter from Rantaine seemed to
supply it.

This letter furnished a motive for Clubin's supposed crime: seventy-five
thousand francs to be appropriated.

Rantaine was the _Deus ex machina_. He had descended from the clouds
with a lantern in his hand. His letter was the final light upon the
affair. It explained everything, and even promised a witness in the
person of Ahier-Tostevin.

The part which it at once suggested for the revolver was decisive.
Rantaine was undoubtedly well informed. His letter pointed clearly the
explanation of the mystery.

There could be no possible palliation of Clubin's crime. He had
premeditated the shipwreck; the proofs were the preparations discovered
in the haunted house. Even supposing him innocent, and admitting the
wreck to have been accidental, would he not, at the last moment, when he
had determined to sacrifice himself with the vessel, have entrusted the
seventy-five thousand francs to the men who escaped in the long-boat.
The evidence was strikingly complete. Now what had become of Clubin? He
had probably been the victim of his blunder. He had doubtless perished
upon the Douvres.

All this construction of surmises, which were not far from the reality,
had for several days occupied the mind of Mess Lethierry. The letter
from Rantaine had done him the service of setting him to think. He was
at first shaken by his surprise; then he made an effort to reflect. He
made another effort more difficult still, that of inquiry. He was
induced to listen, and even seek conversation. At the end of a week, he
had become, to a certain degree, in the world again; his thoughts had
regained their coherence, and he was almost restored. He had emerged
from his confused and troubled state.

Rantaine's letter, even admitting that Mess Lethierry could ever have
entertained any hope of the reimbursement of his money, destroyed that
last chance.

It added to the catastrophe of the Durande this new wreck of
seventy-five thousand francs. It put him in possession of that amount
just so far as to make him se