"Please do not trouble, Monsieur le Préfet. These are only secondary details. The great thing now is that you should know the whole truth, and that not only through words."
The Prefect had come closer. The magistrate and detectives were standing round Don Luis, watching his lips and movements with feverish impatience. Was it possible that that truth, as yet so remote and vague, in spite of all the importance which they attached to the arrests already effected, was known at last?
It was a solemn moment. Every one was on tenterhooks. The manner in which Don Luis had foretold the explosion lent the value of an accomplished fact to his predictions; and the men whom he had saved from the terrible catastrophe were almost ready to accept as certainties the most improbable statements which a man of his stamp might make.
"Monsieur le Préfet," he said, "you waited in vain last night for the fourth letter to make its appearance. We shall now be able, by an unexpected miracle of chance, to be present at the delivery of the letter. You will then know that it was the same hand that committed all the crimes—and you will know whose hand that was."
And, turning to Mazeroux:
"Sergeant, will you please make the room as dark as you can? The shutters are gone; but you might draw the curtains across the windows and close the doors. Monsieur le Préfet, is it by accident that the electric light is on?"
"Yes, by accident. We will have it turned out."
"One moment. Have any of you gentlemen a pocket lantern about you? Or, no, it doesn't matter. This will do."
