On the dismal bed he spread out the contents of the note-case, which proved to be a kind of autobiographical museum. They gave him interesting information; both explicit and implicit. His unsought victim was the Marquis de la Crozière. He classified the documents with a grim smile. Admission cards to the casinos of Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes, and a neatly kept memorandum of losses and gains, led him to the inference that the Marquis de la Crozière was a gambler for high stakes. As no man walks about with a hundred thousand francs by way of casual pocket-money, he surmised that the Marquis de la Crozière had drawn that sum out of a bank that morning in view of the afternoon or evening play.
Of what sort or kind, legitimate or otherwise, was the châtelaine of the estate on which he had tr
