The foregoing conversation will explain how it happened that Madame Leon chanced to surprise her dear young lady in close conversation with a vagabond clad in a blouse. Victor Chupin was not a person to make promises and then leave them unfulfilled. Though he was usually unimpressionable, like all who lead a precarious existence, still, when his emotions were once aroused, they did not spend themselves in empty protestations. It became his fixed determination to find Pascal Ferailleur, and the difficulties of the task in no wise weakened his resolution. His starting point was that Pascal had lived in the Rue d’Ulm, and had suddenly gone off with his mother, with the apparent intention of sailing for America. This was all he knew positively, and everything else was mere conjecture. Still Mademoiselle Marguerite had convinced him that instead of leaving Paris, Pascal was really still there, only waiting for an opportunity to establish his innocence, and to wreak his vengeance upon M. de Coralth and the Marquis de Valorsay. On the other hand, with such a slight basis to depend upon, was it not almost madness to hope to discover a man who had such strong reasons for concealing himself? Chupin did not think so in fact, when he declared his determination to perform this feat, his plan was already perfected.
On leaving M. Fortunat’s office, he hastened straight to the Rue d’Ulm, at the top of his speed. The concierge of the house where Pascal had formerly resided was by no means a polite individual. He was the very same man who had answered Mademoiselle Marguerite’s questions so rudely; but Chupin had a way of conciliating even the most crabbish doorkeeper, and of drawing from him such information as he desired. He learned that at nine o’clock on the sixteenth of October Madame Ferailleur, after seeing her trunks securely strapped on to a cab had entered the vehicle, ordering the driver to take her to the Railway Station in the Place du Havre! Chupin wished to ascertain the number of the cab, but the concierge could not give it. He mentioned, however, that this cab had been procured by Madame Ferailleur’s servant-woman, who lived only a few steps from the house. A moment later Chupin was knocking at this woman’s door. She was a very worthy person, and bitterly regretted the misfortunes which had befallen her former employers. She confirmed the doorkeeper’s story, but unfortunately she, too, had quite forgotten the number of the vehicle. All she could say was that she had hired it at the cab stand in the Rue Soufflot, and that the driver was a portly, pleasant-faced man.
Chupin repaired at once to the Rue Soufflot, where he found the man in charge of the stand in the most savage mood imaginable. He began by asking Chupin what right he had to question him, why he wished to do so, and if he took him for a spy. He added that his duty only consisted in noting the arrivals and departures of the drivers, and that he could give no information whatever. There was evidently nothing to be gained from this ferocious personage; and yet Chupin bowed none the less politely as he left the little office. “This is bad,” he growled, as he walked away, for he was really at a loss what to do next; and if not discouraged, he was at least extremely disconcerted and perplexed. Ah! if he had only had a card from the prefecture of police in his pocket, or if he had been more imposing in appearance, he would have encountered no obstacles; he might then have tracked this cab through the streets of Paris as easily as he could have followed a man bearing a lighted lantern through the darkness. But poor and humble, without letters of recommendation, and with no other auxiliaries than his own shrewdness and experience, he had a great deal to contend against. Pausing in his walk, he had taken off his cap and was scratching his head furiously, when suddenly he exclaimed: “What an ass I am!” in so loud a tone that several passers-by turned to see who was applying this unflattering epithet to himself.
Chupin had just remembered one of M. Isidore Fortunat’s debtors, a man whom he often visited in the hope of extorting some trifling amount from him, and who was employed in the Central office of the Paris Cab Company. “If any one can help me out of this difficulty, it must be that fellow,” he said to himself. “I hope I shall find him at his desk! Come, Victor, my boy, you must look alive!”
However, he could not present himself at the office in the garb he then wore, and so, much against his will, he went home and changed his clothes. Then he took a cab at his own expense, and drove with all possible speed to the main office of the Cab Company, in the Avenue de Segur. Nevertheless it was already ten o’clock when he arrived there. He was more fortunate than he had dared to hope. The man he wanted had charge of a certain department, and was compelled to return to the office every evening after dinner. He was there now.
He was a poor devil who, while receiving a salary of fifteen hundred francs a year, spent a couple of thousand, and utilized his wits in defending his meagre salary from his creditors. On perceiving Chupin, he made a wrathful gesture, and his first words were: “I haven’t got a penny.”
But Chupin smiled his most genial smile. “What!” said he, “do you fancy I’ve come to collect money from you here, and at this hour? You don’t know me. I merely came to ask a favor of you.”
The clerk’s clouded face brightened. “Since that is the case, pray take a seat, and tell me how I can serve you,” he replied.
“Very well. At nine o’clock in the evening, on the sixteenth of October, a lady living in the Rue d’Ulm sent to the stand in the Rue Soufflot for a cab. Her baggage was placed upon it, and she went away no one knows where. However, this lady is a relative of my employer, and he so much wishes to find her that he would willingly give a hundred francs over and above the amount you owe him, to ascertain the number of the vehicle. He pretends that you can give him this number if you choose; and it isn’t an impossibility, is it?”
“On the contrary, nothing could be easier,” replied the clerk, glad of an opportunity to explain the ingenious mechanism of the office to an outsider. “Have you ten minutes to spare?”