“Show him in,” replied the Minister.
He continued writing; then, when the visitor was announced, he turned in his chair, pen in hand.
“Well, monsieur,” said the Minister of Police, “you wish to see me? What is your business?”
“Monsieur,” said Brujon, “I am in great perplexity and distress. For three nights I have not slept, and the thing has worked so on my mind that I said to myself, I will go to Monsieur de Sartines, who is all-powerful, and place this case before him.”
“Yes?”
“Monsieur, four days ago, our pantry-man, Jumeau, who has charge of the silver belonging to my master, asked leave of absence on account of the illness of his mother; he introduced to me a young man, his cousin, named Jouve, in order that Jouve might take his place during the time of his absence. Jouve had an excellent reference, and I engaged him. Well, that night Jouve disappeared. At least, in the morning he was nowhere to be found. Yet he could not have left the house.”
“And why could not he have left the house?”
“Because, monsieur, all the doors are locked, and, what is more, barred on the inside, yet no bar had been removed. My master, when he comes in late, is always admitted by the concierge, who re-bars the door, all the other doors are equally barred, and that night I examined the fastenings myself. If Jouve had left the house by any door, how could he have replaced the bars?”
“He may have had an accomplice in the house,” replied de Sartines, deeply interested and wondering what new move of Lavenne’s this might be, for Beauregard had told him of Lavenne’s suspicions as to Camus, and the whole business, in fact.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied Brujon. “But no silver was taken, no valuables of any sort, why should he have entered the house just to leave it in that manner? Monsieur, I have a feeling that he is still in the house, though, God knows, I have searched diligently enough to find him.”