the interview which he had overheard between Madeleine and Prosper. He hastened to withdraw attention from the scratch upon the lock.
"To conclude," he said, addressing the commissary, "I am convinced that no one outside of the bank could have obtained access to this room. The safe, moreover, is intact. No suspicious pressure has been used on the movable buttons. I can assert that the lock has not been tampered with by burglar's tools or false keys. Those who opened the safe knew the word, and possessed the key."
This formal affirmation of a man whom he knew to be skilful ended the hesitation of the commissary.
"That being the case," he replied, "I must request a few moments' conversation with M. Fauvel."
"I am at your service," said the banker.
Prosper foresaw the result of this conversation. He quietly placed his hat on the table, to show that he had no intention of attempting to escape, and passed into the adjoining room. Fanferlot also went out, but not before the commissary had made him a sign, and received one in return. This sign signified, "You are responsible for this man." The detective needed no admonition to make him keep a strict watch. His suspicions were too vague, his desire for success was too ardent, for him to lose sight of Prosper an instant. Closely following the cashier, he seated himself in a dark corner of the room, and, pretending to be sleepy, he fixed himself in a comfortable position for taking a nap, gaped until his jaw-bone seemed about to be dislocated, then closed his eyes, and kept perfectly quiet. Prosper took a seat at the desk of an absent clerk. The others were burning to know the result of the investigation; their eyes shone with curiosity, but they dared not ask a question. Unable to refrain himself any longer, little Cavaillon, Prosper's defender, ventured to say: "Well, who stole the money?" Prosper shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody knows," he replied. 
Was this conscious innocence or hardened recklessness? The clerks observed with bewildered surprise that Prosper had resumed his usual manner, that sort of icy haughtiness that kept people at a distance, and made him so unpopular in the bank. Save the death-like pallor of his face, and the dark circles around his swollen eyes, he bore no traces of the pitiable agitation he had exhibited a short time before. Never would a stranger entering the room have supposed that this young man idly lounging in a chair, and toying with a pencil, was resting under an accusation of robbery, and was about to be arrested. He soon stopped playing with the pencil and drew toward him a sheet of paper upon which he hastily wrote a few lines. "Ah, ha!" thought Fanferlot the Squirrel, whose hearing and sight were wonderfully good in spite of his profound sleep, "eh! eh! he makes his 

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