Instead of remaining at Sairmeuse a week, Jean Lacheneur tarried there a month; and by the expiration of that month he had traced these inquiries concerning the child to the agent of Chelteux. Through him, he reached Fouche’s former spy; and, finally, succeeded in discovering that the search had been instituted by no less a person than the Duchesse de Sairmeuse.
This discovery bewildered him. How could Mme. Blanche have known that Marie-Anne had given birth to a child; and knowing it, what possible interest could she have had in finding it?
These two questions tormented Jean’s mind continually; but he could discover no satisfactory answer.
“Chupin’s son could tell me, perhaps,” he thought. “I must pretend to be reconciled to the sons of the wretch who betrayed my father.”
But the traitor’s children had been dead for several years, and after a long search, Jean found only the Widow Chupin and her son, Polyte.
They were keeping a drinking-saloon not far from the Chateau-des-Rentiers; and their establishment, known as the Poivriere, bore anything but an enviable reputation.
Lacheneur questioned the widow and her son in vain; they could give him no information whatever on the subject. He told them his name, but even this did not awaken the slightest recollection in their minds.
Jean was about to take his departure when Mother Chupin, probably in the hope of extracting a few pennies, began to deplore her present misery, which was, she declared, all the harder to bear since she had wanted for nothing during the life of her poor husband, who had always obtained as much money as he wanted from a lady of high degree—the Duchesse de Sairmeuse, in short.
Lacheneur uttered such a terrible oath that the old woman and her son started back in affright.
He saw at once the close connection between the researches of Mme. Blanche and her generosity to Chupin.