Philippe hastily promised compliance, and then quitting the apartment, hastily flew downstairs to his father’s shop. The old man had retired to rest early, but his man Panurge was fast asleep upon one of the tables—so soundly that it required no very gentle treatment from Philippe to waken him.
‘Ho! Panurge!’ cried his young master, in a sharp but low voice, ‘awake, man, unless you wish every wretched bone in your miserable carcase broken. Do you hear me?’
‘Hippocrates sayeth that erysipelas upon the baring of a bone is evil,’ muttered Panurge, who mixed up his sleeping studies with his waking faculties.
‘Pshaw!’ cried Philippe, ‘I will give you cause for it, all over you, if you do not attend. Rouse up, I tell you.’
And he gave Panurge such a mighty shake as would have aroused him had he been in a trance. As it was, it immediately restored the assistant to the full exhibition of what faculties he possessed, and he awaited Glazer’s further orders.
‘You know the house of Monsieur Artus, the Commissary of Police, in the Rue des Noyers?’
‘I do,’ replied Panurge; ‘he hath been ill of a choleric gout, for which we gave him the juice of danewort——’
‘The pest on what you gave him!’ said Philippe, ‘so long as you know where he is to be found. Now look you; go off there directly, and if you lose no time on the way you will probably find the Marchioness of Brinvilliers at his house. Give this note to her, and only to her, as you value your useless life.’
He hastily wrote on a scrap of paper:—
‘The police have found some articles in a cabinet belonging to M. de Sainte-Croix, which may cause you much embarrassment from the publicity it will give to your acquaintance. Be careful how you proceed.
‘P. G.’