"That must be he," said Dubois; "and does he pay?"
He evidently attached great importance to the question.
"Very well, monsieur."
"A la bonne heure, Tapin. You have some sense."
"Monseigneur," said Tapin, modestly, "you flatter me; it is quite clear, if he had not paid he could not have been a dangerous man."
Dubois gave him ten louis as a reward, gave him some further orders, and set out at once to go to the Rue des Bourdonnais.
Let us say a word regarding the interior of the hotel. It was partly hotel, partly public house; the dwelling rooms were on the first-floor, and the tavern rooms on the ground-floor.
The principal of these, the common room, had four oak tables, and a quantity of red and white curtains; some benches along the walls, some glasses on a sideboard, some handsomely framed pictures, all blackened and rendered nauseous by smoke, completed the tout ensemble of this room, in which sat a fat man, with a red face, thirty-five or forty years old, and a little pale girl of twelve or fourteen.
This was the landlord and his only daughter and heiress.
A servant was cooking a ragout in the kitchen.