“Trompe-la-Mort sneaked their chips, and I know that they have vowed to be the death of him.”
They were the convicts whose money, intrusted to Trompe-la-Mort, had all been made away with by him for Lucien, as has been told.
“Could you lay your hand on the witnesses of his former arrest?”
“Give me two summonses of witnesses and I will find you some to-day.”
“Coquart,” said the lawyer, as he took off his gloves, and placed his hat and stick in a corner, “fill up two summonses by monsieur’s directions.”
He looked at himself in the glass over the chimney shelf, where stood, in the place of a clock, a basin and jug. On one side was a bottle of water and a glass, on the other a lamp. He rang the bell; his usher came in a few minutes after.
“Is anybody here for me yet?” he asked the man, whose business it was to receive the witnesses, to verify their summons, and to set them in the order of their arrival.
“Yes, sir.”
“Take their names, and bring me the list.”
The examining judges, to save time, are often obliged to carry on several inquiries at once. Hence the long waiting inflicted on the witnesses, who have seats in the ushers’ hall, where the judges’ bells are constantly ringing.