“The robbery of four thousand francs from Doctor Halpersohn!”
“Is that true, Auguste?”
“Grandpapa, I sent him as security your diamond snuff-box. I did it to save you from going to prison.”
“Unhappy boy! what have you done? The diamonds are false!” cried the baron; “I sold the real ones three years ago!”
The commissary of police and his agents looked at each other. That look, full of many things, was intercepted by Baron Bourlac, and seemed to blast him.
“Monsieur,” he said to the commissary, “you need not feel uneasy; I shall go myself to the prefect; but you are witness to the fact that I kept my grandson ignorant of the loss of the diamonds. Do your duty; but I implore you, in the name of humanity, put that lad in a cell by himself; I will go to the prison. To which one are you taking him?”
“Are you really Baron Bourlac?” asked the commissary.
“Oh, monsieur!”
“The fact is that the municipal judge and I doubted if it were possible that you and your grandson could be guilty. We thought, and the doctor, too, that some scoundrels had taken your name.”
He took the baron aside, and added:—