"I do not believe there is the danger that you imagined in the first moment of alarm."
"It was natural."
"Very natural, I admit, but reflection must show how little foundation there is for it. The button has not the name of the tailor who furnished it?"
"No, but it has the initials and the mark of the manufacturer; an A and a
P, with a crown and a cock."
"Well! Among two or three thousand tailors in Paris, how is it possible for the police to find those who use these buttons? And when the tailors are found, how could they designate the owner of this button, this one exactly, and not another? It is looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. Where did your brother have these trousers made? Did he bring them from America?"
"The poor boy brought nothing from America but wretchedly shabby clothes, and we had to clothe him from head to foot. We were obliged to economize, and a little tailor in the Avenue de Clichy, called Valerius, made this suit."
"It seems to me scarcely probable that the police will find this little tailor. But if they do, would he recognize the button as coming from his stock? And, if they get as far as your brother, they must prove that there was a struggle; that the button was torn off in this struggle; that your brother was in the Rue Sainte-Anne between five and six o'clock; in which case, without doubt, he will find it easy to prove where he was at that moment."
"He was with us—with mamma."
"You see, then, you need not feel alarmed."