"Surely," muttered he, as if apart, "these cinders have been
disturbed recently, and if they have been--"
He knelt down, and pushing the cinders away, laid bare the stones
of the fireplace. Then taking a thin piece of wood, he easily
inserted it into the cracks between the stones.
"See here, Monsieur Plantat," said he. "There is no cement between
these stones, and they are movable; the treasure must be here."
When the pickaxe was brought, he gave a single blow with it; the
stones gaped apart, and betrayed a wide and deep hole between them.
"Ah," cried he, with a triumphant air, "I knew it well enough."
The hole was full of rouleaux of twenty-franc pieces; on counting
them, M. Lecoq found that there were nineteen thousand five hundred
francs.
The old justice's face betrayed an expression of profound grief.
"That," thought he, "is the price of my poor Sauvresy's life."
M. Lecoq found a small piece of paper, covered with figures,
deposited with the gold; it seemed to be Robelot's accounts. He
had put on the left hand the sum of forty thousand francs; on the
right hand, various sums were inscribed, the total of which was
twenty-one thousand five hundred francs.
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