unwell, said, with an effort:

"I think, Monsieur Rouletabille, that we've not much more to do at the
Glandier, and that we sha'n't sleep here many more nights."

"I think so, too, Monsieur Fred."

"Then you think the conclusion of the matter has been reached?"

"I think, indeed, that we have nothing more to find out," replied
Rouletabille.

"Have you found your criminal?" asked Larsan.

"Have you?"

"Yes."

"So have I," said Rouletabille.

"Can it be the same man?"

"I don't know if you have swerved from your original idea," said the
young reporter. Then he added, with emphasis: "Monsieur Darzac is an
honest man!"

"Are you sure of that?" asked Larsan. "Well, I am sure he is not. So
it's a fight then?"

"Yes, it is a fight. But I shall beat you, Monsieur Frederic Larsan."

"Youth never doubts anything," said the great Fred laughingly, and held
out his hand to me by way of conclusion.

Rouletabille's answer came like an echo:

"Not anything!"

Suddenly Larsan, who had risen to wish us goodnight, pressed both his
hands to his chest and staggered. He was obliged to lean on Rouletabille
for support, and to save himself from falling.

"Oh! Oh!" he cried. "What is the matter with me?--Have I been poisoned?"

He looked at us with haggard eyes. We questioned him vainly; he did not
answer us. He had sunk into an armchair and we could get not a word from
him. We were extremely distressed, both on his account and on our own,
for we had partaken of all the dishes he had eaten. He seemed to be out
of pain; but his heavy head had fallen on his shoulder and his eyelids
were tightly closed. Rouletabille bent over him, listening for the
beatings of the heart.

My friend's face, however, when he stood up, was as calm as it had been
a moment before agitated.

"He is asleep," he said.

He led me to his chamber, after closing Larsan's room.

"The drug?" I asked. "Does Mademoiselle Stangerson wish to put everybody
to sleep, to-night?"

"Perhaps," replied Rouletabille; but I could see he was thinking of
something else.

"But what about us?" I exclaimed. "How do we know that we have not been
drugged?"

"Do you feel indisposed?" Rouletabille asked me coolly.

"Not in the least."

"Do you feel any inclination to go to sleep?"

"None whatever."

"Well, then, my friend, smoke this excellent cigar."

And he handed me a choice Havana, one Monsieur Darzac had given him,
while he lit his briarwood--his eterna