The banker hesitated a moment.
“I think not,” he said at last.
“And I am certain he did not,” said Prosper.
The commissary expected and was prepared for those answers; but it did not suit his purpose to follow them up immediately.
“However,” said he, “we must make ourselves sure of it.” Turning toward his companion:
“M. Fanferlot,” he said, “go and see if you cannot discover some traces that may have escaped the attention of these gentlemen.”
M. Fanferlot, nicknamed the Squirrel, was indebted to his prodigious agility for this title, of which he was not a little proud. Slim and insignificant in appearance he might, in spite of his iron muscles, be taken for a bailiff’s under clerk, as he walked along buttoned up to the chin in his thin black overcoat. He had one of those faces that impress us disagreeably—an odiously turned-up nose, thin lips, and little, restless black eyes.
Fanferlot, who had been on the police force for five years, burned to distinguish himself, to make for himself a name. He was ambitious. Alas! he was unsuccessful, lacking opportunity—or genius.
Already, before the commissary spoke to him, he had ferreted everywhere; studied the doors, sounded the partitions, examined the wicket, and stirred up the ashes in the fireplace.
“I cannot imagine,” said he, “how a stranger could have effected an entrance here.”