Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 4).djvu/146

Baptistin, without answering, approached the count, and presented the letter. "Important and urgent," said he.

The count opened the letter, and read:

"'M.de Monte-Cristo is warned that this night a man will enter his house in the Champs Elysées with the intention of carrying off some papers supposed to be in the secrétaire in the dressing-room. The count's well-known courage will render unnecessary the aid of the police, whose interference might seriously affect him who sends this advice. The count, either by an opening from the bedroom or by concealing himself in the dressing-room, would be able to defend his property himself. Many attendants or apparent precautions would prevent the villain from the attempt, and M. de Monte-Cristo would lose the opportunity of discovering an enemy whom chance has revealed to him who now sends this warning to the count,―a warning he might not be able to send another time, if this first attempt should fail and another be made.'"

The count's first idea was that this was an artifice of a robber—a stupid trap to draw his attention from a minor danger in order to expose him to a greater. He was on the point of sending the letter to the commissaire de police, notwithstanding the advice of his anonymous friend, or, perhaps, because of that advice, when suddenly the idea occurred to him that it might be some personal enemy, whom he alone should recognize, and over whom, if such were the case, he alone could gain any advantage, as Fiesco had done over the Moor who would have killed him. We know the count's vigorous and daring mind, facing impossibilities with that energy which makes the great man.

From his past life, from his resolution to shrink from nothing, the count had acquired an inconceivable relish for the contests in which he had engaged, sometimes against nature, which is God, sometimes against the world, which may pass for the devil.

"They do not want my papers," said Monte-Cristo; "they want to kill me: they are no robbers, but assassins. I will not allow M. le Préfet de Police to interfere with my private affairs. I am rich enough, forsooth, to dispute his authority on this occasion."

The count recalled Baptistin, who had left the room after delivering the letter.

"Return to Paris," said he; "assemble the servants who remain there. I want all my household at Auteuil."

"But will no one remain in the house, my lord?" asked Baptistin.

"Yes, the porter."

"My lord will remember that the lodge is at a distance from the house."

"Well?"

"The house might be stripped without his hearing the least noise."

"By whom?"