“First of all,” replied M. Folgat, “I mean to recommence, for our benefit the investigation which M. Galpin has left incomplete. To-night your mother and I will leave for Paris. I have come to ask you for the necessary information, and for the means to explore your house in Vine Street, to discover the friend whose name you assumed, and the servant who waited upon you.”
The bolts were drawn as he said this; and at the open wicket appeared Blangin’s rubicund face.
“The Marchioness de Boiscoran,” he said, “is in the parlor, and begs you will come down as soon as you have done with these gentlemen.”
Jacques turned very pale.
“My mother,” he murmured. Then he added, speaking to the jailer,—
“Do not go yet. We have nearly done.”
His agitation was too great: he could not master it. He said to the two lawyers,—
“We must stop here for to-day. I cannot think now.”
But M. Folgat had declared he would leave for Paris that very night; and he was determined to do so. He said, therefore,—
“Our success depends on the rapidity of our movements. I beg you will let me insist upon your giving me at once the few items of information which I need for my purposes.”