one o'clock on Friday
And people discussed the only three possible endings : arrest , triumph , or grotesque and pitiful failure . But , as it happened , public curiosity was destined to be only partially satisfied ; and the exact truth is revealed for the first time in these pages . On Thursday , the 12th of March , M. Gerbois received the notice from the Crédit Foncier , in an ordinary envelope . At one o'clock on Friday , he took the train for Paris . A thousand notes of a thousand francs each were handed to him at two . While he was counting them over , one by one , with trembling hands -- for was this money not Suzanne 's ransom ? -- two men sat talking in a cab drawn up at a short distance from the main entrance .