"What a man!" he said. "Nevertheless, Lépine, I think you would better go. You may be able to assist him! Give him my compliments, and keep me informed," and he turned back to his secretary.
The Paris office of the Messrs. Cook is at the corner opposite the Opera House, and here, about ten o'clock on the morning of Thursday, September 28, a little grey-bearded man descended from a fiacre, entered, and, after a short delay, was admitted to the presence of the manager, who made it clear at once that he was entirely at the service of his distinguished visitor.
Lépine sat down and produced from his pocket seven notes of the Bank of France, for one hundred francs each. They were quite new and had not even been folded.
"These notes were deposited by you yesterday afternoon," he said. "I should like to know from whom they were received."
The manager took the notes and glanced at them.
"That will not be difficult, sir," he said. "Our cashier can no doubt tell us from which of our clerks he received them. Excuse me a moment."
He hurried from the room with the notes in his hand, and Lépine, strolling to the window, relapsed into his favourite amusement. At no other corner in the city could it be practised so profitably, for here, at the meeting of the Boulevards, all Paris, sooner or later, passed; and not Paris only, but vagrants from every nation. So Lépine watched the crowd intently, his bright eyes skipping from face to face—a mere glance at one, a longer glance at another, a close stare at a third. Perhaps, at the back of his mind, there was the hope that some incredible good-fortune might send past this corner a shrunken, white-haired man, leaning on the arm of his dark-haired daughter....
The opening of the door behind him broke into his thoughts, and he turned to find that the manager had brought another man back with him.
"This is the clerk who received the money," said the manager, and returned the seven notes to the detective.