“But please remark,” said the usurer, “that I must give an answer to la Peyrade in the course of to-day. He is in a great hurry to start the business.”
“Very well; you must accept, asking a delay of twenty-four hours to obtain your security. If, after making certain inquiries I see it is more to my interests not to meddle in the affair, you can get out of it by merely breaking your word; you can’t be sent to the court of assizes for that.”
Independently of a sort of inexplicable fascination which du Portail exercised over his agent, he never lost an opportunity to remind him of the very questionable point of departure of their intercourse.
The next day Cerizet returned.
“You guessed right,” said du Portail. “That woman Lambert, being obliged to conceal the existence of her booty, and wanting to draw interest on her stolen property, must have taken it into her head to consult la Peyrade; his devout exterior may have recommended him to her. She probably gave him that money without taking a receipt. In what kind of money was Dutocq paid?”
“In nineteen thousand-franc notes, and twelve of five-hundred francs.”
“That’s precisely it,” said du Portail. “There can’t be the slightest doubt left. Now, what use do you expect to make of this information bearing upon Thuillier.”
“I expect to put it into his head that la Peyrade, to whom he is going to give his goddaughter and heiress, is over head and ears in debt; that he makes enormous secret loans; and that in order to get out of his difficulties he means to gnaw the newspaper to the bone; and I shall insinuate that the position of a man so much in debt must be known to the public before long, and become a fatal blow to the candidate whose right hand he is.”
“That’s not bad,” said du Portail; “but there’s another and even more conclusive use to be made of the discovery.”
“Tell me, master; I’m listening,” said Cerizet.