The other shook his head and did not answer. “Ah, not of the best? Drinks?”
M. Fille nodded.
“Has a weak character?”
Again M. Fille nodded.
“Has no good reputation hereabouts?”
The nod was repeated. “He has never been steady He goes here and there, but always he comes back to get Jean Jacques’ help. He and his daughter are not close friends, and yet he likes to be near her. She can endure him at least. He can command her interest. He is a stranger in a strange land, and he drifts back to where she is always. But that is all.”
“Then he is out of the question, and he would be always out of the question except as a last resort; for sooner or later he would tell his daughter, and challenge our George Masson too; and that is what you do not wish, eh?”
“Precisely so,” remarked M. Fille, dropping back again into gloom. “To be quite honest, monsieur, even though it gives me a task which I abhor, I do not think that M. Dolores could do what is needed without mistakes which could not be mended. At least I can—” He stopped.
The Judge interposed at once, well pleased with the way things were going for this “case.” “Assuredly. You can as can no other, my Solon. The secret of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, a clear intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is your task and yours only.”
The little man’s self-respect seemed restored. He preened himself somewhat and bowed to the Judge. “I take your commands, monsieur, to obey them as heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?”