The Burglary — The Count of Monte Cristo

The day after Andrea gave Caderousse the house plan, Monte Cristo leaves for Auteuil. Bertuccio reports that the country house and sloop are ready. The Count orders eight fresh horses posted on the road to Treport in case he must ride fifty leagues in one night. Baptistin arrives dusty with an urgent anonymous letter. It warns that tonight a man will enter the Champs-Elysees house to steal papers from the dressing-room secretaire. Monte Cristo thinks the goal is murder, not robbery. He refuses to call the police. He sends almost all servants to Auteuil but keeps the porter in his distant lodge. At twilight he slips back into his Paris house through a side door without being seen.

At half past nine he eats a crust of bread with Ali and opens a hidden panel in his bedroom wall. Through it he watches the dressing-room and the street. Two hours pass in the dark. When the Invalides clock nears midnight, he hears glass being cut with a diamond. One man climbs through the window and bolts both doors. It is Caderousse. He searches for the secretaire key, then works the lock with skeleton keys that thieves call nightingales. A second man paces in the street below, watching the house.

Monte Cristo puts on a priest's cassock and the Abbe Busoni wig over steel mail. He steps into the light while Caderousse grinds at the lock. Caderousse is shocked and tries to flee. The false abbe questions him about Toulon, Lord Wilmore, and Benedetto. Caderousse admits Andrea Cavalcanti is the Count's false son who gets five thousand francs a month and half a million in the will. Caderousse lunges with a knife but the blade turns on hidden armor. The abbe makes him write a letter to Baron Danglars naming Benedetto, prisoner No. 59, then orders him out the window. He promises a small annuity if Caderousse leaves France safely.

Caderousse climbs down the ladder while the watcher in the street waits at the wall. Before he reaches the ground the watcher strikes him three times in the back, side, and chest. Caderousse falls crying murder and help to the reverend sir. Monte Cristo blows out the light and comes from the garden with Ali carrying lamps. The trap has closed and the old accomplice is dying in the street.