“You haf mate a fool of me!” he said, in reply to this official’s greeting.
“I could not help myself, Monsieur le Baron. I do not want to lose my place, and I had the honor of explaining to you that I could not meddle in a matter that had nothing to do with my functions. What did I promise you? To put you into communication with one of our agents, who, as it seemed to me, would be best able to serve you. But you know, Monsieur le Baron, the sharp lines that divide men of different trades: if you build a house, you do not set a carpenter to do smith’s work. Well, there are two branches of the police—the political police and the judicial police. The political police never interfere with the other branch, and vice versa. If you apply to the chief of the political police, he must get permission from the Minister to take up our business, and you would not dare to explain it to the head of the police throughout the kingdom. A police-agent who should act on his own account would lose his place.
“Well, the ordinary police are quite as cautious as the political police. So no one, whether in the Home Office or at the Prefecture of Police, ever moves excepting in the interests of the State or for the ends of Justice.
“If there is a plot or a crime to be followed up, then, indeed, the heads of the corps are at your service; but you must understand, Monsieur le Baron, that they have other fish to fry than looking after the fifty thousand love affairs in Paris. As to me and my men, our only business is to arrest debtors; and as soon as anything else is to be done, we run enormous risks if we interfere with the peace and quiet of any man or woman. I sent you one of my men, but I told you I could not answer for him; you instructed him to find a particular woman in Paris; Contenson bled you of a thousand-franc note, and did not even move. You might as well look for a needle in the river as for a woman in Paris, who is supposed to haunt Vincennes, and of whom the description answers to every pretty woman in the capital.”
“And could not Contenson haf tolt me de truf, instead of making me pleed out one tousand franc?”
“Listen to me, Monsieur le Baron,” said Louchard. “Will you give me a thousand crowns? I will give you—sell you—a piece of advice?”
“Is it vort one tousand crowns—your atvice?” asked Nucingen.
“I am not to be caught, Monsieur le Baron,” answered Louchard. “You are in love, you want to discover the object of your passion; you are getting as yellow as a lettuce without water. Two physicians came to see you yesterday, your man tells me, who think your life is in danger; now, I alone can put you in the hands of a clever fellow.—But the deuce is in it! If your life is not worth a thousand crowns——”
“Tell me de name of dat clefer fellow, and depent on my generosity——”
Louchard took up his hat, bowed, and left the room.