This letter made Modeste terribly uneasy. She could not get back the one which Francoise had carried away before she came to the last words, whose meaning she now sought by reading them again and again; but she went to her own room and wrote an answer in which she demanded an immediate explanation.
CHAPTER XIV. MATTERS GROWN COMPLICATED
During these little events other little events were going on in Havre, which caused Modeste to forget her present uneasiness. Dumay went down to Havre early in the morning, and soon discovered that no architect had been in town the day before. Furious at Butscha’s lie, which revealed a conspiracy of which he was resolved to know the meaning, he rushed from the mayor’s office to his friend Latournelle.
“Where’s your Master Butscha?” he demanded of the notary, when he saw that the clerk was not in his place.
“Butscha, my dear fellow, has gone to Paris. He heard some news of his father this morning on the quays, from a Swedish sailor. It seems the father went to the Indies and served a prince, or something, and he is now in Paris.”
“Lies! it’s all a trick! infamous! I’ll find that damned cripple if I’ve got to go express to Paris for him,” cried Dumay. “Butscha is deceiving us; he knows something about Modeste, and hasn’t told us. If he meddles in this thing he shall never be a notary. I’ll roll him in the mud from which he came, I’ll—”
“Come, come, my friend; never hang a man before you try him,” said Latournelle, frightened at Dumay’s rage.
After stating the facts on which his suspicions were founded, Dumay begged Madame Latournelle to go and stay at the Chalet during his absence.
“You will find the colonel in Paris,” said the notary. “In the shipping news quoted this morning in the Journal of Commerce, I found under the head of Marseilles—here, see for yourself,” he said, offering the paper. “‘The Bettina Mignon, Captain Mignon, arrived October 6’; it is now the 17th, and the colonel is sure to be in Paris.”