Chapter 61.

Monte Cristo travels to the Montlhéry telegraph tower and inspects the gardener-operator’s immaculate little plot, learning his passions and modest circumstances. He confirms the man’s indifference to the content of signals and his vulnerability to fines or dismissal for errors.

Exploiting the operator’s desire for a larger garden and security, Monte Cristo tempts him with 25,000 francs to alter a transmission. Despite fear of losing his position and pension, the man performs the three false signals provided by Monte Cristo.

The falsified message, relayed up the line to the Minister of the Interior, reports Don Carlos’s escape and a rising in Barcelona. Debray, receiving the news, rushes to warn Madame Danglars, prompting Danglars to sell all his Spanish bonds immediately, triggering a market drop and a substantial loss.

The next day, an official correction attributes the report to a fog-induced misreading; the funds rebound above previous levels, converting Danglars’s precaution into a ruinous miscalculation—counting both loss and missed gains, about a million francs. Monte Cristo coolly tells Morrel he has learned how a gardener gets rid of dormice eating his peaches, revealing his stratagem of using false signals to wound an enemy through the markets.