“Yes, monsieur le président.”
“Well, can you dispense with our friend here? Can you, without his assistance, find the place where the gold is hidden? Observe that he makes things very easy for you by bringing you to the place and almost pointing out the exact spot to you. Is that enough? Have you any hope of discovering the secret which you have been seeking for weeks and months?”
M. Masseron was very frank in his reply:
“No, monsieur le président,” he said, plainly and without hesitation.
“Well, then. …”
And, turning to Don Luis:
“And you, sir,” Valenglay asked, “is it your last word?”
“My last word.”
“If we refuse … good evening?”
“You have stated the case precisely, monsieur le président.”
“And, if we accept, will the gold be handed over at once?”
“At once.”
“We accept.”
And, after a slight pause, he repeated:
“We accept. The ambassador shall receive his instructions this evening.”
“Do you give me your word, sir?”
“I give you my word.”
“In that case, we are agreed.”
“We are agreed. Now then! …”
All these sentences were uttered rapidly. Not five minutes had elapsed since the former prime minister had appeared upon the scene. Nothing remained to do but for Don Luis to keep his promise.
It was a solemn moment. The four men were standing close together, like acquaintances who have met in the course of a walk and who stop for a minute to exchange their news. Valenglay, leaning with one arm on the parapet overlooking the lower quay, had his face turned to the river and kept raising and lowering his cane above the sand-heap. Patrice and M. Masseron stood silent, with faces a little set.
Don Luis gave a laugh:
“Don’t be too sure, monsieur le président,” he said, “that I shall make the gold rise from the ground with a magic wand or show you a cave in which the bags lie stacked. I always thought those words, ‘the golden triangle,’ misleading, because they suggest something mysterious and fabulous. Now according to me it was simply a question of the space containing the gold, which space would have the shape of a triangle. The golden triangle, that’s it: bags of gold arranged in a triangle, a triangular site. The reality is much simpler, therefore; and you will perhaps be disappointed.”
“I shan’t be,” said Valenglay, “if you put me with my face towards the eighteen hundred bags of gold.”
“You’re that now, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I say. Short of touching the bags of gold, it would be difficult to be nearer to them than you are.”
For all his self-control, Valenglay could not conceal his surprise:
“You are not suggesting, I suppose, that I am walking on gold and that we have only to lift up the flags of the pavement or to break down this parapet?”
“That would be removing obstacles, sir, whereas there is no obstacle between you and what you are seeking.”
“No obstacle!”
“None, monsieur le président, for you have only to make the least little movement in order to touch the bags.”
“The least little movement!” said Valenglay, mechanically repeating Don Luis’ words.
“I call a little movement what one can make without an effort, almost without stirring, such as dipping one’s stick into a sheet of water, for instance, or …”
“Or what?”
“Well, or a heap of sand.”
Valenglay remained silent and impassive, with at most a slight shiver passing across his shoulders. He did not make the suggested movement. He had no need to make it. He understood.
The others also did not speak a word, struck dumb by the simplicity of the amazing truth which had suddenly flashed upon them like lightning. And, amid this silence, unbroken by protest or sign of incredulity, Don Luis went on quietly talking:
“If you had the least doubt, monsieur le président—and I see that you have not—you would dig your cane, no great distance, twenty inches at most, into the sand beneath you. You would then encounter a resistance which would compel you to stop. That is the bags of gold. There ought to be eighteen hundred of them; and, as you see, they do not make an enormous heap. A kilogram of gold represents three thousand one hundred francs. Therefore, according to my calculation, a bag containing approximately fifty kilograms, or one hundred and fifty-five thousand francs done up in rouleaus of a thousand francs, is not a very large bag. Piled one against the other and one on top of the other, the bags represent a bulk of about fifteen cubic yards, no more. If you shape the mass roughly like a triangular pyramid you will have a base each of whose sides would be three yards long at most, or three yards and a half allowing for the space lost between the rouleaus of coins. The height will be that of the wall, nearly. Cover the whole with a layer of sand and you have the heap which lies before your eyes …”
Don Luis paused once more before continuing:
“And which has been there for months, monsieur le président, safe from discovery not only by those who were looking for it, but also by accident on the part of a casual passerby. Just think, a heap of sand! Who would dream of digging a hole in it to see what is going on inside? The dogs sniff at it, the children play beside it and make mudpies, an occasional tramp lies down against it and takes a snooze. The rain softens it, the sun hardens it, the snow whitens it all over; but all this happens on the surface, in the part that shows. Inside reigns impenetrable mystery, darkness unexplored. There is not a hiding-place in the world to equal the inside of a sand heap exposed to view in a public place. The man who thought of using it to hide three hundred millions of gold, monsieur le président, knew what he was about.”
The late prime minister had listened to Don Luis’ explanation without interrupting him.
