“Good God, I am losing my wits!
I ask him where — as if we ever told them ——” thought he.
A few hours before the moment when Peyrade was to be roused in his garret in the Rue Saint–Georges, Corentin, coming in from his country place at Passy, had made his way to the Duc de Grandlieu’s, in the costume of a retainer of a superior class.
He wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his button-hole.
He had made up a withered old face with powdered hair, deep wrinkles, and a colorless skin.
His eyes were hidden by tortoise-shell spectacles.
He looked like a retired office-clerk.
On giving his name as Monsieur de Saint–Denis, he was led to the Duke’s private room, where he found Derville reading a letter, which he himself had dictated to one of his agents, the “number” whose business it was to write documents.
The Duke took Corentin aside to tell him all he already knew.
Monsieur de Saint–Denis listened coldly and respectfully, amusing himself by studying this grand gentleman, by penetrating the tufa beneath the velvet cover, by scrutinizing this being, now and always absorbed in whist and in regard for the House of Grandlieu.
“If you will take my advice, monsieur,” said Corentin to Derville, after being duly introduced to the lawyer, “we shall set out this very afternoon for Angouleme by the Bordeaux coach, which goes quite as fast as the mail; and we shall not need to stay there six hours to obtain the information Monsieur le Duc requires.
It will be enough — if I have understood your Grace — to ascertain whether Monsieur de Rubempre’s sister and brother-in-law are in a position to give him twelve hundred thousand francs?” and he turned to the Duke.
“You have understood me perfectly,” said the Duke.
“We can be back again in four days,” Corentin went on, addressing Derville, “and neither of us will have neglected his business long enough for it to suffer.”
“That was the only difficulty I was about to mention to his Grace,” said Derville. “It is now four o’clock. I am going home to say a word to my head-clerk, and pack my traveling-bag, and after dinner, at eight o’clock, I will be —— But shall we get places?” he said to Monsieur de Saint–Denis, interrupting himself.
“I will answer for that,” said Corentin. “Be in the yard of the Chief Office of the Messageries at eight o’clock.
If there are no places, they shall make some, for that is the way to serve Monseigneur le Duc de Grandlieu.”
“Gentlemen,” said the Duke most graciously, “I postpone my thanks ——”
Corentin and the lawyer, taking this as a dismissal, bowed, and withdrew.
At the hour when Peyrade was questioning Corentin’s servant, Monsieur de Saint–Denis and Derville, seated in the Bordeaux coach, were studying each other in silence as they drove out of Paris.
Next morning, between Orleans and Tours, Derville, being bored, began to converse, and Corentin condescended to amuse him, but keeping his distance; he left him to believe that he was in the diplomatic service, and was hoping to become Consul–General by the good offices of the Duc de Grandlieu.
Two days after leaving Paris, Corentin and Derville got out at Mansle, to the great surprise of the lawyer, who thought he was going to Angouleme.
“In this little town,” said Corentin, “we can get the most positive information as regards Madame Sechard.”
“Do you know her then?” asked Derville, astonished to find Corentin so well informed.
“I made the conductor talk, finding he was a native of Angouleme.
He tells me that Madame Sechard lives at Marsac, and Marsac is but a league away from Mansle.
I thought we should be at greater advantage here than at Angouleme for verifying the facts.”
“And besides,” thought Derville, “as Monsieur le Duc said, I act merely as the witness to the inquiries made by this confidential agent ——”
The inn at Mansle, la Belle Etoile, had for its landlord one of those fat and burly men whom we fear we may find no more on our return; but who still, ten years after, are seen standing at their door with as much superfluous flesh as ever, in the same linen cap, the same apron, with the same knife, the same oiled hair, the same triple chin — all stereotyped by novel-writers from the immortal Cervantes to the immortal Walter Scott.
Are they not all boastful of their cookery? have they not all “whatever you please to order”? and do not all end by giving you the same hectic chicken, and vegetables cooked with rank butter?
They all boast of their fine wines, and all make you drink the wine of the country.
But Corentin, from his earliest youth, had known the art of getting out of an innkeeper things more essential to himself than doubtful dishes and apocryphal wines.
So he gave himself out as a man easy to please, and willing to leave himself in the hands of the best cook in Mansle, as he told the fat man.
“There is no difficulty about being the best — I am the only one,” said the host.
“Serve us in the side room,” said Corentin, winking at Derville. “And do not be afraid of setting the chimney on fire; we want to thaw out the frost in our fingers.”
“It was not warm in the coach,” said Derville.
“Is it far to Marsac?” asked Corentin of the innkeeper’s wife, who came down from the upper regions on hearing that the diligence had dropped two travelers to sleep there.
“Are you going to Marsac, monsieur?” replied the woman.
“I don’t know,” he said sharply. “Is it far from hence to Marsac?” he repeated, after giving the woman time to notice his red ribbon.
“In a chaise, a matter of half an hour,” said the innkeeper’s wife.
“Do you think that Monsieur and Madame Sechard are likely to be there in winter?”
“To be sure; they live there all the year round.”
“It is now five o’clock.
We shall still find them up at nine.”
“Oh yes, till ten. They have company every evening — the cure, Monsieur Marron the doctor ——”
“Good folks then?” said Derville.
“Oh, the best of good souls,” replied the woman, “straight-forward, honest — and not ambitious neither.
Monsieur Sechard, though he is very well off — they say he might have made millions if he had not allowed himself to be robbed of an invention in the paper-making of which the brothers Cointet are getting the benefit ——”
“Ah, to be sure, the Brothers Cointet!” said Corentin.
“Hold your tongue,” said the innkeeper. “What can it matter to these gentlemen whether Monsieur Sechard has a right or no to a patent for his inventions in paper-making? — If you mean to spend the night here — at the Belle Etoile——” he went on, addressing the travelers, “here is the book, and please to put your names down.