THE BURGLARY
The next day, Monte Cristo received a letter from an unknown person. This is what it said :-
You are informed that a man will break into your house tonight. He will try to steal some papers from your desk in the dressing room. Do not call the police, as it might harm me. As you are brave, you need only hide yourself, wait for the burglar, and catch him. It will be better if there are no servants in the house. Send them to your country house! If the burglar sees servants in the house and is frightened away, I might not get a second chance to warn you.
The Count thought this must be a thieves' trick to keep him in his house in Paris and then to rob his country house. But then why should they ask him to send his servants to the country house?
'No,' he thought again, 'they want to get me alone in the house and then kill me. Well, we shall see who these enemies are.'
Monte Cristo ordered all the servants, except Ali, to go off to his country house. Haydee went there too.
He and Ali then hid themselves in the bedroom in the Paris house and waited for the burglar. There was a small spyhole in the wall. The Count could see through it into the dressing room. He looked and waited, with a gun and two pistols at his side.
The whole house was in darkness. Not a light burned anywhere. The Count had removed the staple of the bolt on the door in the dressing room leading to his bed room.
Now he got up and looked out of his bedroom window to see if he could see anyone in the street. He could see nothing. He went again to the little hole in the wall and looked through it into the dressing room. He had nothing to do but wait.
About midnight, Monte Cristo thought he heard a scratching noise in the drawing room. Then there was a second scratching noise, and a third, and a fourth. The Count knew what was happening. Somebody was cutting the four sides of a pane of glass with a diamond. Monte Cristo's heart began to beat more quickly for a few seconds. He wondered how many thieves were breaking into the house, and he signalled to Ali to come a little closer. He saw something white appearing at one of the windows in the dressing room. It was a sheet of paper being stuck to the pane. Then the square of glass cracked without falling. A hand came through the opening and unfastened the window. It opened slowly. A man came through it into the room. He was alone.
'That's a daring rascal!' thought the Count.
Ali touched Monte Cristo's shoulder and pointed to the bedroom window. The Count went over to it and looked into the street. There was another man down there, looking at the house.
'Good!' said the Count to himself. 'Now I know there are two of them. One acts while the other watches.'
He made a sign to Ali to watch the man in the street and he went to the hole in the wall to watch the man in the dressing room.
The burglar was bolting all the doors in the dressing room. Now he thought that no one could disturb him and he could safely break open the desk. He didn't know that the Count had removed a staple from one of the bolts. He lifted the cover of his lantern to look at the desk, to see how he could pick open the lock. As he did this, the light fell on his face. The Count was surprised.
'Why,' he whispered,'it is........!'
Ali raised his hatchet.
'Put down your hatchet,' whispered the Count. Then he gave Ali some instructions. Ali went away quietly. He soon came back, carrying a priest's dress, a long black wig and a false beard. Quickly, Monte Cristo put these on and turned himself into Father Busoni. Then, going again to the window, he looked once more into the street. The other man was still there, standing under a street lamp with the light on his face. Now Monte Cristo recognised him also. He understood everything.
'Stay here,' he whispered to Ali, 'and don't come into the dressing room unless I call you.'
He lighted a candle and walked straight into the dressing room.
'Good evening, dear Monsieur Caderousse,' said Monte Cristo. 'What are you doing here at this time of night?'
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