“You think so?”
“I am sure of it. To whom was this letter addressed?”
“To M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, No. 13, Paris.”
“Now can you conceive of any interest that your heroic deputy could possibly have had in the destruction of that letter?”
“Why, it is not altogether impossible he might have had, for he made me promise several times never to speak of that letter to anyone, assuring me he so advised me for my own interest; and, more than this, he insisted on my taking a solemn oath never to utter the name mentioned in the address.”
“Noirtier!” repeated the abbé; “Noirtier!—I knew a person of that name at the court of the Queen of Etruria,—a Noirtier, who had been a Girondin during the Revolution! What was your deputy called?”
“De Villefort!” The abbé burst into a fit of laughter, while Dantès gazed on him in utter astonishment.
“What ails you?” said he at length.
“Do you see that ray of sunlight?”
“I do.”
“Well, the whole thing is more clear to me than that sunbeam is to you. Poor fellow! poor young man! And you tell me this magistrate expressed great sympathy and commiseration for you?”
“He did.”
“And the worthy man destroyed your compromising letter?”
“Yes.”
“And then made you swear never to utter the name of Noirtier?”
“Yes.”
“Why, you poor short-sighted simpleton, can you not guess who this Noirtier was, whose very name he was so careful to keep concealed? This Noirtier was his father!”