"To decline to answer is to answer," said Pierre Chaffin. "So papers are missing from Monsieur Jaubourg's, valuable papers, no doubt, and you, and Monsieur de Claviers, I suppose, with you, accuse my father of the theft!"
"No valuable paper is missing from Monsieur Jaubourg's," replied Landri, "and, once more, we accuse no one."
"If it is not valuable papers that have disappeared," continued the physician, "it must be letters. And why do people steal letters? To sell them, threatening to make them public, for blackmail."
His habit of inductive reasoning began to work anew, and in that moment of supreme agony, he made use of what he knew to guess the rest. Letters had been stolen. What letters? Those which referred to the birth of the child of Jaubourg and Madame de Claviers. They were a
