"You can trust me, M. Paul," declared Papa Bonneton rubbing his hands in excitement.
"To begin with, who is the man with the long little finger that she told me about?" He put the questions carelessly, as if it were of no particular moment.
"Why, that's Groener," answered Bonneton simply.
"Groener? Oh, her cousin?"
"Yes."
"I'm interested," went on the detective with the same indifferent air, "because I have a collection of plaster hands at my house—I'll show it to you some day—and there's one with a long little finger that the candle girl noticed. Is her cousin's little finger really very long?"
"It's pretty long," said Bonneton. "I used to think it had been stretched in some machine. You know he's a wood carver."
"I know. Well, that's neither here nor there. The point is, this girl had a dream that—why, what's the matter?"
"Don't talk to me about her dreams!" exclaimed the sacristan. "She used to have us scared to death with 'em. My wife won't let her tell 'em any more, and it's a good thing she won't." For a mild man he spoke with surprising vehemence.
"Bonneton," continued the detective mysteriously, "I don't know whether it's from her dreams or in some other way, but that girl knows things that—that she has no business to know."