Success made Madame Guerin avaricious. She began to crave for a large fortune, and she believed that she was clever enough to gain it at one stroke. Experience had proved that it was easy enough to open a man's purse with a story of a rich bride, and her victims took their disappointment so calmly that there was no danger of retribution. Perhaps the sight of wealthy London fired her imagination. Anyhow, she immediately began to look round for a suitable dupe there.
It was, however, necessary to have her husband's help. As she pretended to be a widow, she called him her friend, and it was as Monsieur Cesbron that she introduced him to her friends and acquaintances. Hitherto Cesbron had wisely kept in the background, an admiring spectator from afar of his wife's astuteness, and no doubt he shared in the little windfalls from the Government official and Lalère.
He was not averse to taking a leading part in the next big swindle, and it was Cesbron who found the very man for their purpose. Through a friend he had heard that in the West End of London there was a doctor who had saved a considerable sum of money, and who was in every way a very eligible bachelor.
The initial difficulty was how to make themselves known to him, but Madame Guerin solved the problem by planning a pretty little scheme. She might have called on the doctor in the guise of a patient, but she decided not to do this lest he discovered there was nothing the matter with her.
Her final plan was to pretend that she had invented a new method of sterilizing milk, and that she wished to have a doctor's opinion of its merits.
Madame Guerin underrated her abilities, for, as events proved, she need not have bothered about the "invention." The doctor was pleased to make the acquaintance of the charming widow, and she soon had every opportunity for dragging in references to her rich young lady friends who were anxious to find husbands.
The medical man was incredulous at first, then curious, and eventually impressed. Madame Guerin did not look like a swindler or talk in the manner of a professional matrimonial agent. She was too human for that, and there was nothing of the hard-headed business woman about her.
The doctor readily agreed to join her at a dinner-party and meet the young heiresses, and choose which of them he would care to marry.
The meeting took place at an hotel, and on this occasion Miss Northcliffe failed to win his approval. A young lady whose name was given as Miss Smith gained his vote.
Miss Smith was a beauty, vivacious, clever, and fascinating. When he was persuaded to believe that she had a large fortune, the doctor considered himself the luckiest man in the world.