Baron Bourlac immediately resolved to go straight to Barbet. The former publisher lived in the rue Saint-Catherine d’Enfer, and it took him a quarter of an hour to reach the house.
“Ah! I suppose you have come to get that bill of sale,” said Barbet, replying to the salutation of his victim. “Here it is.”
And, to Baron Bourlac’s great astonishment, he held out the document, which the baron took, saying,—
“I do not understand.”
“Didn’t you pay me?” said the usurer.
“Are you paid?”
“Yes, your grandson took the money to the sheriff this morning.”
“Then it is true you made a seizure at my house yesterday?”
“Haven’t you been home for two days?” asked Barbet. “But an old magistrate ought to know what a notification of arrest means.”
Hearing that remark, the baron bowed coldly to Barbet and returned home, thinking that the policemen whom Nepomucene had pointed out must have come for the two impecunious authors on the upper floor. He walked slowly, lost in vague apprehensions; for, in spite of the explanation he gave himself, Nepomucene’s words came back, and seemed to him more and more obscure and inexplicable. Was it possible that Godefroid had betrayed him?