Still no reliable news.

One detective fancied he had detected him in Constantinople; another was equally certain he had, at the same time, seen him in Berlin.

I became almost mad with despair.
The first of December had come, and I was not a step nearer finding the man whose presence would free me from Voltaire's villainous charge.
That which troubled me most was the fact that I did not know whether he were alive.

Even if I did not kill him, perhaps Voltaire had got him out of the way so that he might fasten the guilt on me.

"What, after all," was the thought that maddened me, "if he should be lying at the bottom of Drearwater Pond ?" There were only twenty-four days now.