“Is the will sealed?”
“Yes, alas!”
“It is a criminal offence if you carry off a will and suppress it, but it is only a misdemeanor to look at it; and anyhow, what does it amount to? A peccadillo, and nobody will see you. Is your man a heavy sleeper?”
“Yes. But when you tried to see all the things and value them, he ought to have slept like a top, and yet he woke up. Still, I will see about it. I will take M. Schmucke’s place about four o’clock this morning; and if you care to come, you shall have the will in your hands for ten minutes.”
“Good. I will come up about four o’clock, and I will knock very softly—”
“Mlle Remonencq will take my place with Cibot. She will know, and open the door; but tap on the window, so as to rouse nobody in the house.”
“Right,” said Fraisier. “You will have a light, will you not. A candle will do.”
At midnight poor Schmucke sat in his easy-chair, watching with a breaking heart that shrinking of the features that comes with death; Pons looked so worn out with the day’s exertions, that death seemed very near.
Presently Pons spoke. “I have just enough strength, I think, to last till to-morrow night,” he said philosophically. “To-morrow night the death agony will begin; poor Schmucke! As soon as the notary and your two friends are gone, go for our good Abbe Duplanty, the curate of Saint-Francois. Good man, he does not know that I am ill, and I wish to take the holy sacrament to-morrow at noon.”
There was a long pause.