"What did I tell you, Monsieur le Baron? Really, I should not
have accepted your offer. I am ashamed."
He unlocked the door and entered the gallery. Upon two chairs,
with drooping heads and pendent arms, the detective's two
assistants were asleep.
"Tonnerre de nom d'un chien!" exclaimed Ganimard. At the same
moment, the baron cried out:
"The pictures! The credence!"
He stammered, choked, with arms outstretched toward the empty
places, toward the denuded walls where naught remained but the
useless nails and cords. The Watteau, disappeared! The Rubens,
carried away! The tapestries taken down! The cabinets, despoiled
of their jewels!
"And my Louis XVI candelabra! And the Regent chandelier!...And
my twelfth-century Virgin!"
He ran from one spot to another in wildest despair. He recalled
the purchase price of each article, added up the figures, counted
his losses, pell-mell, in confused words and unfinished phrases.
He stamped with rage; he groaned with grief. He acted like a
ruined man whose only hope is suicide.
If anything could have consoled him, it would have been the
stupefaction displayed by Ganimard. The famous detective did not
move.
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