And, as he had good reasons to mistrust Mme. Fortin, he took the commissary outside the room, on the landing; and there, in a few words, he explained to him that this Zelie was precisely the same woman whom they had found in the Rue du Cirque, in that sumptuous mansion where Vincent Favoral, under the simple name of Vincent, had been living, according to the neighbors, in such a princely style.
The commissary of police was astounded. Why had he not known all this sooner? Better late than never, however.
"Ah! you are right, M. le Marquis, a hundred times right!" he declared. "This girl must evidently know Vincent Favoral's secret, the key of the enigma that we are vainly trying to solve. What she would not tell to you, a stranger, she will tell to Lucienne, her friend."
Maxence offered to go himself for Zelie Cadelle.
No," answered Marius. " If she should happen to know you, she would mistrust you, and would refuse to come."
It was, therefore, M. Fortin who was despatched to the Rue du Cirque, and who went off muttering, though he had received five francs to take a carriage, and five francs for his trouble.
"And now," said the commissary of police to Maxence, "we must both of us get out of the way. I, because the fact of my being a commissary would frighten Mme. Cadelle; you because, being Vincent Favoral's son, your presence would certainly prove embarrassing to her."
And so they went out; but M. de Tregars did not remain long alone with Mlle. Lucienne. M. Fortin had had the delicacy not to tarry on the way.
Eleven o'clock struck as Zelie Cadelle rushed like a whirlwind into her friend's room.
Such had been his haste, that she had given no thought whatever to her dress. She had stuck upon her uncombed hair the first bonnet she had laid her hand upon, and thrown an old shawl over the wrapper in which she had received Marius in the afternoon.
"What, my poor Lucienne!" she exclaimed. "Are you so sick as all that?"
But she stopped short as she recognized M. de Tregars; and, in a suspicious tone, "What a singular meeting!" she said.
Marius bowed.
"You know Lucienne?"
What she meant by that he understood perfectly. "Lucienne is my sister, madame," he said coldly.
She shrugged her shoulders. "What humbug!"
"It's the truth," affirmed Mlle. Lucienne; "and you know that I never lie."
Mme. Zelie was dumbfounded.
"If you say so," she muttered. "But no matter: that's queer."
M. de Tregars interrupted her with a gesture, "And, what's more, it is because Lucienne is my sister that you see her there lying upon that bed. They attempted to murder her to-day!"
"Oh!"
"It was her mother who tried to get rid of her, so as to possess herself of the fortune which my father had left her; and there is every reason to believe that the snare was contrived by Vincent Favoral."
Mme. Zelie did not understand very well; but, when Marius and Mlle.
Lucienne had informed her of all that it was useful for her to know, "Why," she exclaimed, "what a horrid rascal that old Vincent must be!"
And, as M. de Tregars remained dumb, "This afternoon," she went on, "I didn't tell you any stories; but I didn't tell you every thing, either." She stopped; and, after a moment of deliberation, "'Well, I don't care for old Vincent," she said. "Ah! he tried to have Lucienne killed, did he? Well, then, I am going to tell every thing I know. First of all, he wasn't any thing to me. It isn't very flattering; but it is so. He has never kissed so much as the end of my finger. He used to say that he loved me, but that he respected me still more, because I looked so much like a daughter he had lost. Old humbug! And I believed him too! I did, upon my word, at least in the beginning. But I am not such a fool as I look. I found out very soon that he was making fun of me; and that he was only using me as a blind to keep suspicion away from another woman."
"From what woman?"
"Ah! now, I do not know! All I know is that she is married, that he is crazy about her, and that they are to run away together."
"Hasn't he gone, then?"
Mme. Cadelle's face had become somewhat anxious, and for over a minute she seemed to hesitate.
"Do you know," she said at last, "that my answer is going to cost me a lot? They have promised me a pile of money; but I haven't got it yet. And, if I say any thing, good-by! I sha'n't have any thing."
M. de Tregars was opening his lips to tell her that she might rest easy on that score; but she cut him short.
"Well, no," she said: "Old Vincent hasn't gone. He got up a comedy, so he told me, to throw the lady's husband off the track. He sent off a whole lot of baggage by the railroad; but he staid in Paris."
"And do you know where he is hid?"
"In the Rue St. Lazare, of course: in the apartment that I hired two weeks ago."
In a voice trembling with the excitement of almost certain success, "Would you consent to take me there?" asked M. de Tregars.
"Whenever you like,-to-morrow."
