“Well, I see I am expected to pay that sum myself,” said du Portail, crossly; “but the question is whether the utility of your presence in this enterprise is worth to me the interest on one hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three francs, thirty-three centimes.”
“Hang it!” said Cerizet, “if I were once installed near Thuillier, I shouldn’t despair of soon putting him and la Peyrade at loggerheads. In the management of a newspaper there are lots of inevitable disagreements, and by always taking the side of the fool against the clever man, I can increase the conceit of one and wound the conceit of the other until life together becomes impossible. Besides, you spoke just now of political danger; now the manager of a newspaper, as you ought to know, when he has the intellect to be something better than a man of straw, can quietly give his sheet a push in the direction wanted.
“There’s a good deal of truth in that,” said du Portail, “but defeat to la Peyrade, that’s what I am thinking about.”
“Well,” said Cerizet, “I think I have another nice little insidious means of demolishing him with Thuillier.”
“Say what it is, then!” exclaimed du Portail, impatiently; “you go round and round the pot as if I were a man it would do you some good to finesse with.”
“You remember,” said Cerizet, coming out with it, “that some time ago Dutocq and I were much puzzled to know how la Peyrade was, all of a sudden, able to make that payment of twenty-five thousand francs?”
“Ha!” said the old man quickly, “have you discovered the origin of that very improbable sum in our friend’s hands; and is that origin shady?”
“You shall judge,” said Cerizet.
And he related in all its details the affair of Madame Lambert,—adding, however, that on questioning the woman closely at the office of the justice-of-peace, after the meeting with la Peyrade, he had been unable to extract from her any confession, although by her whole bearing she had amply confirmed the suspicions of Dutocq and himself.
“Madame Lambert, rue du Val-de-Grace, No. 9; at the house of Monsieur Picot, professor of mathematics,” said du Portail, as he made a note of the information. “Very good,” he added; “come back and see me to-morrow, my dear Monsieur Cerizet.”