"I should fully agree with you if the bloodhound were faithful, but I fear it is not."
"Ah, M. Narcisse, you think—"
"I think that, instead of putting us on the track, you amuse yourself with setting us on a false scent, and abuse the confidence placed in you. Every day you promise to aid us to lay hands on the gang, and that day never arrives."
"What if the day arrives to-day, M. Narcisse, as I am sure it will? What if I bring together in a parcel Barbillon, Nicholas Martial, the widow, her daughter, and the Chouette? Will that or will it not be a good sweep of the net? Will you then mistrust me any longer?"
"No; and you will have rendered a real service; for there are very strong presumptive facts against this gang,—suspicions almost assured, but, unfortunately, no proofs."
"So, then, a small fag-end of actual crime, which would allow of their being apprehended, would help amazingly to unravel the difficult skein,—eh, M. Narcisse?"
"Most decidedly. And you assure me that there has not been the slightest incitement on your part towards the coup which they are now going to attempt?"
"No, on my honour! It is the Chouette, who came to me to propose inveigling the diamond-matcher here when that infernal hag learned from my son that Morel, the lapidary, who lives in the Rue du Temple, was a workman in real stones, and not in false, and that Mother Mathieu had frequently considerable value about her person, I acceded to the proposition, and suggested to the Chouette that the Martials and Barbillon should join her, so that I might be able to put the whole party into your hands."
"And the Schoolmaster,—that fellow who is so dangerous, so powerful, and so ferocious, and who was always with the Chouette,—one of the frequenters of the tapis-franc?"
"The Schoolmaster?" said Bras-Rouge, feigning astonishment.