The Count of Monte Cristo

“Ah! indeed! You had your pocket-book with you, then? Now, how could a pocket-book, large enough to contain an official letter, find sufficient room in the pockets of a sailor?”

“You are right: I had it not with me,—it was left on board.”

“Then it was not till your return to the ship that you placed the letter in the pocket-book?”

“No.”

“And what did you do with this same letter while returning from Porto-Ferrajo to your vessel?”

“I carried it in my hand.”

“So that when you went on board the Pharaon, everybody could perceive you held a letter in your hand?”

“To be sure they could.”

“Danglars, as well as the rest?”

“Yes; he as well as others.”

“Now, listen to me, and try to recall every circumstance attending your arrest. Do you recollect the words in which the information against you was couched?”

“Oh, yes! I read it over three times, and the words sunk deeply into my memory.”

“Repeat it to me.”

Dantès paused a few instants as though collecting his ideas, then said, “This is it, word for word:—‘M. le Procureur du Roi is informed by a friend to the throne and religion, that an individual, named Edmond Dantès, second in command on board the Pharaon, this day arrived from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been charged by Murat with a packet for the usurper; again, by the usurper, with a letter for the Bonapartist Club in Paris. This proof of his guilt may be procured by his immediate arrest, as the letter will be found either about his person, at his father’s residence, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon.’”

The abbé shrugged up his shoulders. “The thing is clear as day,” said he; “and you must have had a very unsuspecting nature, as well as a good heart, not to have suspected the origin of the whole affair.”

“Do you really think so? Ah, that would, indeed, be the treachery of a villain!”

“How did Danglars usually write?”

“Oh! extremely well.”

“And how was the anonymous letter written?”

“All the wrong way—backwards, you know.”

Again the abbé smiled. “In fact it was a disguised hand?”

“I don’t know; it was very boldly written, if disguised.”

“Stop a bit,” said the abbé, taking up what he called his pen and, after dipping it into the ink, he wrote on a morsel of prepared linen, with his left hand, the first two or three words of the accusation. Dantès drew back, and gazed on the abbé with a sensation almost amounting to terror.

“How very astonishing!” cried he, at length. “Why, your writing exactly resembles that of the accusation!”

“Simply because that accusation had been written with the left hand; and I have always remarked one thing———”

“What is that?”

“That whereas all writing done with the right hand varies, that performed with the left hand is invariably similar.”

“You have evidently seen and observed everything.”

“Let us proceed.”

“Oh! yes, yes! Let us go on.”

“Now as regards the second question. Was there any person whose interest it was to prevent your marriage with Mercédès?”

“Yes, a young man who loved her.”

“And his name was———?”

“Fernand.”

“That is a Spanish name, I think?”

“He was a Catalan.”

“You imagine him capable of writing the letter?”

“Oh, no! he would more likely have got rid of me by sticking a knife into me.”

“That is in strict accordance with the Spanish character; an assassination they will unhesitatingly commit, but an act of cowardice never.”

“Besides,” said Dantès, “the various circumstances mentioned in the letter were wholly unknown to him.”

“You had never spoken of them yourself to any one?”

“To no person whatever.”

“Not even to your mistress?”

“No, not even to my betrothed bride.”

“Then it is Danglars beyond a doubt.”

“I feel quite sure of it, now.”

“Wait a little. Pray was Danglars acquainted with Fernand?”

“No—yes, he was. Now I recollect———”

“What?”

“To have seen them both sitting at table together beneath an arbour at Père Pamphile the evening before the day fixed for my wedding. They were in earnest conversation. Danglars was joking in a friendly way, but Fernand looked pale and agitated.”