Question as he would, there was never any answer.
He practised the pleasant deceit that the first mark had been there when the diagram had been given to him.

It was not possible that any one had discovered his hiding-place.

Had he not with his own hands contrived it, alone and without aid, under that accursed mansard roof?
Not one of his co-adventurers knew; they had advanced him funds on his word.

His other documents they had seen; these had sufficed them.
Still, back it came, with deadly insistence; some one was digging at the bricks in the chimney.

The drama was beginning to move.